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Telemakhos 6 hours ago

I'd like to know when they stopped publishing census data. I have used it for genealogical purposes to track ancestors: you can see exactly who was living in which house, how they are related, and what their ages are (I found that women in my family often reported, both on the census and marriage documents, being younger than they actually were). I don't think I've seen data from after 1950, though.

I don't understand why the census would include SNAP data or income: surely the government already has that information. I have never doubted that the IRS knows my income better than I do. Maybe better use of existing datasets could restrict the census to less invasive questions.

Polizeiposaune 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They haven't stopped but they don't happen immediately.

Detailed census records are published 72 years after they were collected; the last release (of 1950 census data) came out in 2022; the next one should be published in 2032.

See: https://www.archives.gov/research/census

philipkglass 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They didn't stop publishing census data. Its publication is delayed for approximately one human lifetime, to avoid affecting the living:

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/01/20/census-record...

personofinteres 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Census Bureau is a lot more than the 10-year Census, and it already makes very extensive use of IRS data and other administrative sources. Virtually everything that is published using these sources uses either differential privacy or other privacy protection methods that are prohibited by the order. I'm guessing that a lot of those pieces of data are just going to be put on hold until the order is reversed or weakened. A number of things might have to go away permanently, as there's almost certainly no way to protect privacy in them without some kind of noise infusion.

TBH I don't think the people who wrote this knew how much collateral impact it would have.