John M. Abowd, Tamara Adams, Robert Ashmead, David Darais, Sourya Dey, Simson L. Garfinkel, Nathan Goldschlag, Michael B. Hawes, Daniel Kifer, Philip Leclerc, Ethan Lew, Scott Moore, Rolando A. Rodríguez, Ramy N. Tadros, Lars Vilhuber
arXiv 18 Dec 2023 · Statistics — Applications · 4 citations (OpenAlex)
arXiv:2312.11283 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
We show that individual, confidential microdata records from the 2010 U.S. Census of Population and Housing can be accurately reconstructed from the published tabular summaries. Ninety-seven million person records (every resident in 70% of all census blocks) are exactly reconstructed with provable certainty using only public information. We further show that a hypothetical attacker using our methods can reidentify with 95% accuracy population unique individuals who are perfectly reconstructed and not in the modal race and ethnicity category in their census block (3.4 million persons)--a result that is only possible because their confidential records were used in the published tabulations. Finally, we show that the methods used for the 2020 Census, based on a differential privacy framework, provide better protection against this type of attack, with better published data accuracy, than feasible alternatives.
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The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dick, Travis, Dwork, Cynthia, Kearnsc, Michael, Liu, Terrance, Roth,… (2023) Confidence-Ranked Reconstruction of Census Microdata from Published Statistics | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| 2 | Jarmin, Ron S., Abowd, John M., Ashmead, Robert, Cumings-Menon, Ryan… (2023) An in-depth examination of requirements for disclosure risk assessment self | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| 3 | Kenny, Christopher T., Kuriwaki, Shiro, McCartan, Cory, Rosenman, Ev… (2021) The use of differential privacy for census data and its impact on redistricting: The case of the 2020 U.S. Census | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| 4 | Rocher, L., Hendrickx, J.M., Montjoye, YA (2019) Estimating the success of re-identifications in incomplete datasets using generative models | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| 5 | McKenna, Laura (2018) Disclosure Avoidance Techniques Used for the 1970 through 2010 Decennial Censuses of Population and Housing | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 6 | McKenna, Laura (2019) Disclosure Avoidance Techniques Used for the 1960 Through 2010 Decennial Censuses of Population and Housing Public Use Microdata… | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 7 | Ruggles, Steven, Van Riper, David (2022) The Role of Chance in the Census Bureau Database Reconstruction Experiment | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 8 | (2012) 2010 Census Summary File 1 –-Technical Documentation | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 9 | Abowd, John M., Hawes, Michael B (2023) Confidentiality protection in the 2020 US Census of Population and Housing self | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 10 | Francis, Paul (2022) A Note on the Misinterpretation of the US Census Re-identification Attack | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 43 scored citations.