The Myth of US Census Data Privacy
January 25, 2010
A chilling cautionary tale related to the 2010 U.S. Census from the Mar. 30, 2007 issue of Scientific American: “Despite decades of denials, government records confirm that the U.S. Census Bureau provided the U.S. Secret Service with names and addresses of Japanese-Americans during World War II.”
The disclosure, while legal at the time, was ethically dubious and may have implications for the 2010 census, say historian Margo Anderson, University of Wisconsin, and statistician William Seltzer, Fordham University, who together rooted out and confirmed the federal agency’s 67-year-old duplicity.
“Records show that in 1943 the Census Bureau revealed names and addresses of Japanese-Americans in the Washington, D.C., area. Prior research had found that the Bureau provided the government with less specific information about Japanese-Americans in California and other states to round them up (above) for imprisonment in internment camps,” writes JR Minkel in his Scientific American piece entitled, Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II. Read Minkel’s entire article here.
Census data is routinely used to enforce the National Voting Rights Act and other policies, but not in a form that could be used to identify a particular person’s race, sex, age, address or other information, Census Bureau officials contend.
The Bureau admits it provided neighborhood data on Arab-Americans to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2002. A provision in the controversial Patriot Act—passed after the 9/11 attacks and derided by critics as an erosion of privacy—gives agencies access to individualized survey data collected by university researchers as well.
via Larry Shinagawa, director, Asian American Studies Dept., University of Maryland.
Related resources:
- Official Statistics and Statistical Confidentiality, Anderson/Seltzer
- How We Protect Your Data, U.S. Census Bureau
- The 2010 Census and the JACL, jacl.org
- From Flip-flops to Falafel: Deja Vu 1942, epicanthus
- Census Confidentiality? The Check Is in the Mail, Dave Kopel, i2i.org
