John M Abowd

John Abowd, ILR emeritus professor and former chief scientist at the Census Bureau, commented that it’s not necessarily unusual for the Office of Management and Budget to be involved in policy management, in this article about required changes to how the bureau preserves participant privacy while providing data.

“The only confidentiality protection available is coarsening. It is guaranteed to reduce the level of detail drastically,” said John Abowd, ILR emeritus professor and former chief scientist at the Census Bureau, discussing the impact of the Trump administration’s ban of a privacy technique called “noise infusion.”

The political context and practical effects of a recent Commerce Department memo banning certain privacy protections used in the 2020 U.S. Census are discussed by Lars Vilhuber, executive director of ILR’s Labor Dynamics Institute, and John Abowd, ILR emeritus professor. [Syndicated from Talking Points Memo]