WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration issued an order prohibiting the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis from employing statistical noise to safeguard privacy in publicly released data. This new policy mandates that statistical agencies either release coarsened statistics with fewer details or withhold certain statistics entirely.

Federal law requires the bureau to maintain the anonymity of individuals whose information is used to produce data from surveys and government records. The Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau, issued the order banning noise infusion. Kristen Eichamer, a Commerce Department spokesperson, said, "The order prioritized coarsening as the preferred privacy protection technique to maintain public confidence in our data while upholding our duty to safeguard the privacy of those who provide information." Eichamer said, "Indiscriminate use of noise infusion, even when not mandated by law, ultimately undermined confidence in the department's products and cast doubt on their integrity." The department did not provide specific instances of indiscriminate noise infusion upon request.

John Abowd, former chief scientist at the bureau, said, "Plans for 2030 census redistricting data will have to be completely redesigned, and not just the confidentiality protections." Abowd said, "The only confidentiality protection available is coarsening. It is guaranteed to reduce the level of detail drastically." Abowd previously led the adoption of a privacy protection system based on differential privacy for the bureau. Bureau officials had stated that adopting differential privacy was necessary because of advancements in computing and increased access to voter registration lists and commercial data sets.

Beth Jarosz, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Massive Data Institute, said, "This new order upends all of that. It takes the public out of the process. It takes the experts out of the process." Jarosz said, "Neighborhood-level data is at risk. Rural communities' data may be not publishable."

The bureau applied privacy protection methods involving noise to detailed demographic data used for redrawing voting district maps in 2020, but it did not add statistical noise to state-level 2020 census results used to redistribute congressional seats and Electoral College votes. Republican state officials in Alabama filed a lawsuit against the bureau to block the new privacy protections. This lawsuit was later dropped, and voting district maps across the country were drawn using the noise-infused 2020 census redistricting data. America First Legal also filed a lawsuit challenging the bureau's differential privacy system; a three-judge court ruled this lawsuit was filed past the time limit, leading America First Legal to refile the case. The Commerce Department order could be revoked before the 2030 census under a new presidential administration.