Notice2023-06774
Differential Privacy Methodology for County Business Patterns Data
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
April 3, 2023
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentCensus Bureau
Abstract
The U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) has been working to implement modernized methods to continue to ensure the privacy protections of its information products and seeks public engagement and comment on these efforts. The Census Bureau is targeting the release the 2022 County Business Patterns (CBP) data using differential privacy methodology for disclosure avoidance. The Census Bureau has created demonstration tables and invites the public to participate in a live question-and-answer webinar on April 20, 2023, to learn more about how the differential privacy methodology is being applied to the CBP data. This Notice requests written comments on the demonstration tables and other issues related to this topic.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 63 (Monday, April 3, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 63 (Monday, April 3, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19606-19607]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06774]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau
[Docket Number: 230301-0059]
Differential Privacy Methodology for County Business Patterns
Data
AGENCY: Census Bureau, Department of Commerce.
ACTION: Notice and request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) has been working to
implement modernized methods to continue to ensure the privacy
protections of its information products and seeks public engagement and
comment on these efforts. The Census Bureau is targeting the release
the 2022 County Business Patterns (CBP) data using differential privacy
methodology for disclosure avoidance. The Census Bureau has created
demonstration tables and invites the public to participate in a live
question-and-answer webinar on April 20, 2023, to learn more about how
the differential privacy methodology is being applied to the CBP data.
This Notice requests written comments on the demonstration tables and
other issues related to this topic.
DATES: A live question-and-answer webinar will be held on Thursday,
April 20, 2023, at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, for discussion of how
the differential privacy methodology is applied to the CBP data. The
webinar will be recorded.
Written comments must be submitted on or before June 2, 2023.
ADDRESSES: The webinar will be made available at <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/academy/webinars/2023/differential-privacy-webinar.html">https://www.census.gov/data/academy/webinars/2023/differential-privacy-webinar.html</a> Demonstration tables are available at <a href="https://www.census.gov/topics/business-economy/disclosure/data/tables.html">https://www.census.gov/topics/business-economy/disclosure/data/tables.html</a>.
Please direct all written comments to Margaret Beckom,
Dissemination Standards Branch, Economic Management Division, U.S.
Census Bureau.
Email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a3cec2d1c4c2d1c6d78dce8dc1c6c0c8cccee3c0c6cdd0d6d08dc4ccd5"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="80ede1f2e7e1f2e5f4aeedaee2e5e3ebefedc0e3e5eef3f5f3aee7eff6">[email protected]</span></a> with the subject CBP Disclosure
Feedback.
Phone: 301-763-7522.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Margaret Beckom, Dissemination
Standards Branch, Economic
[[Page 19607]]
Management Division, U.S. Census Bureau. Email:
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#402d213227213225346e2d6e2225232b2f2d0023252e3335336e272f36"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="0c616d7e6b6d7e69782261226e696f6763614c6f69627f797f226b637a">[email protected]</span></a>; Phone: 301-763-7522.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
County Business Patterns Program Background
The CBP is an annual series that provides subnational economic data
by industry. This series includes estimates of the number of
establishments, employment during the week of March 12, first quarter
payroll, and annual payroll for subnational geographic areas. This data
is useful for studying the economic activity of small areas; analyzing
economic changes over time; and as a benchmark for other statistical
series, surveys, and databases between economic censuses. Businesses
use the data for analyzing market potential, measuring the
effectiveness of sales and advertising programs, setting sales quotas,
and developing budgets. Government agencies use the data for
administration and planning.
Current Disclosure Avoidance Methodology
A noise infusion technique referred to as multiplicative noise has
been the Census Bureau's disclosure avoidance methodology for CBP data
since reference year 2007. This method of disclosure avoidance perturbs
each establishment's data prior to table creation by applying a random
noise multiplier to the magnitude data (i.e., characteristics such as
first-quarter payroll, annual payroll, and number of employees) for
each establishment. Each published table's cell value has an associated
noise flag indicating the relative amount of distortion in the cell
value resulting from the perturbation of the data contributing to the
cell. The flag for ``low noise'' (G) indicates the cell value was
changed by less than 2 percent with the application of noise, the flag
for ``moderate noise'' (H) indicates the value was changed by at least
2 percent but less than 5 percent, and the flag for ``high noise'' (J)
indicates the value was changed 5 percent or more. Values for some
cells in the table may be suppressed (denoted with an S) because of
concerns about the quality of the data. Also, beginning with reference
year 2017, a cell is only published if it is based on data from three
or more establishments. In all other cases, the cell is not included in
the release (i.e., the corresponding table row is dropped from
publication).
Differential Privacy Methodology
The proposed statistical disclosure limitation approach makes use
of controlled, randomized noise added to published statistics to limit
the extent to which public data users can make inferences about
establishments in the internal, private CBP database. The approach
includes two components: (1) Per-Record Differential Privacy, which
gives a formal, mathematically provable privacy guarantee against exact
inferences about establishments in the private database; and (2) non-
differentially private, second-stage noise. Second-stage noise does not
confer a formal privacy guarantee, but it ensures that large
establishments present in published CBP statistics have a level of
relative protection that increases as the number of establishments
contributing to a published statistic decreases.
Demonstration Tables for New Differential Privacy Methodology for
Disclosure Avoidance
The Census Bureau has created demonstration tables to illustrate
how the new differential privacy methodology for disclosure avoidance
can be applied to produce CBP estimates and will discuss this
application during the April 20th webinar. These tables can be viewed
at <a href="https://www.census.gov/topics/business-economy/disclosure/data/tables.html">https://www.census.gov/topics/business-economy/disclosure/data/tables.html</a>. The tables show estimates of the number of establishments,
number of employees, first-quarter payroll, and annual payroll across
geographic, industry, legal form of organization, and employment size
levels. The input data for the demonstration tables are a set of
synthetic microdata created solely from previously published CBP
results. This approach ensures that existing disclosure avoidance
safeguards are not compromised by the publication of the demonstration
tables. The demonstration tables also include summary statistics of the
uncertainty introduced by the new differential privacy methodology and
comparison with the uncertainty introduced by the current disclosure
avoidance methodology. We invite comments on these demonstration
tables, including use cases (examples of how CBP data are used) and
whether the new methodology affects these use cases (including whether
the amount of noise shown in the demonstration tables would prevent or
change any analyses for those use cases).
Robert L. Santos, Director, Census Bureau, approved the publication
of this Notice in the Federal Register.
Dated: March 2, 2023.
Shannon Wink,
Program Analyst, Policy Coordination Office, U.S. Census Bureau.
[FR Doc. 2023-06774 Filed 3-31-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P
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