Researchers push for public test of census privacy tools

The Census Bureau says it has improved its ability to give accurate data while protecting the privacy of its 2020 questionnaire responses, but experts worry they won’t be able to test the agency’s strategy before it is finalized.

The tweaks to the new method are critical to an accurate population count, one that will affect legislative mapmaking and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funds.

The bureau made changes to an algorithm that adds “noise” to census data, a policy referred to as differential privacy, after researchers argued last year that a public test showed the policy made census data