US Census Bureau Bans Noise Infusion in Statistical Products
The U.S. Department of Commerce just decided that "noise infusion" is out. Last week, they issued an order banning the practice for all statistical products coming out of the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For anyone who cares about how we protect sensitive data, this is a weird move. The goal of disclosure avoidance is simple. You have a secret dataset full of private information, and you want to publish a set of numbers based on that data without accidentally doxxing the people in it. For years, the gold standard has been adding mathematical noise to the results. It's a way to keep the statistics useful while ensuring no one can reverse engineer the original records. Now, the government is stepping away from that. We're left with older, clunkier methods like swapping records or just refusing to publish any count below five. These aren't just different tools. They're fundamentally different ways of thinking about privacy. The que...