The Complexities of Differential Privacy for Survey Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Drechsler, Jörg, Bailie, James
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Drechsler, Jörg
Bailie, James
author_facet Drechsler, Jörg
Bailie, James
contents The concept of differential privacy (DP) has gained substantial attention in recent years, most notably since the U.S. Census Bureau announced the adoption of the concept for its 2020 Decennial Census. However, despite its attractive theoretical properties, implementing DP in practice remains challenging, especially when it comes to survey data. In this paper we present some results from an ongoing project funded by the U.S. Census Bureau that is exploring the possibilities and limitations of DP for survey data. Specifically, we identify five aspects that need to be considered when adopting DP in the survey context: the multi-staged nature of data production; the limited privacy amplification from complex sampling designs; the implications of survey-weighted estimates; the weighting adjustments for nonresponse and other data deficiencies, and the imputation of missing values. We summarize the project's key findings with respect to each of these aspects and also discuss some of the challenges that still need to be addressed before DP could become the new data protection standard at statistical agencies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_07006
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Complexities of Differential Privacy for Survey Data
Drechsler, Jörg
Bailie, James
Methodology
Cryptography and Security
The concept of differential privacy (DP) has gained substantial attention in recent years, most notably since the U.S. Census Bureau announced the adoption of the concept for its 2020 Decennial Census. However, despite its attractive theoretical properties, implementing DP in practice remains challenging, especially when it comes to survey data. In this paper we present some results from an ongoing project funded by the U.S. Census Bureau that is exploring the possibilities and limitations of DP for survey data. Specifically, we identify five aspects that need to be considered when adopting DP in the survey context: the multi-staged nature of data production; the limited privacy amplification from complex sampling designs; the implications of survey-weighted estimates; the weighting adjustments for nonresponse and other data deficiencies, and the imputation of missing values. We summarize the project's key findings with respect to each of these aspects and also discuss some of the challenges that still need to be addressed before DP could become the new data protection standard at statistical agencies.
title The Complexities of Differential Privacy for Survey Data
topic Methodology
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.07006