Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC)

This page provides links and conventional references to much of the research sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau in the areas of statistical disclosure control, confidentiality, and disclosurelimitation. Some of the work cited was conducted by the Disclosure Limitation Research Group within the Statistical Research Division (SRD) of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Documents used by the Census Bureau's Disclosure Review Board

Questions and Answers about Clearing Data for Public Release:

• FAQ  [PDF 15k]

Census Bureau Checklist (filled out for each data product)

• Checklist  [DOC 564k]

Census Bureau sponsored book on Confidentiality:

"Confidentiality, Disclosure and Data Access,   Theory and Practical Applications for Statistical Agencies"

Sections of this book can be viewed and/or printed:

1. Chapter 1:   Introduction [PDF 134k]
2. Annotated bibliography of some papers in SDC [PDF 216k] (excerpted from chapter by Abowd and Woodcock)

List of References:  Microdata Confidentiality  References [PDF 47k]

Tables useful for Testing Tabular SDC programs (suppliedby Ramesh.Dandekar@eia.doe.gov)

• Count Tables (7 tables in a zip file) [ZIP 3.0 Mb]
• Magnitude Tables (2 Twenty Dimtables in a zip file) [ZIP 1.2 Mb]
• HIER13D5.ZIP [ZIP 4.0 Mb]

Links to other agencies and organizations doing work in SDC

The FederalCommitteeon Statistical Methodology (FCSM) oversees the Confidentiality and Data Access Committee (CDAC)

The American Statistical Association (ASA) has the following committee:
Privacy and Confidentiality Committee

For information on the project:   Computational Aspects of Statistical Confidentiality (CASC) funded by the European Union SDC group.

A selection of SDC Research Papers by Census authors

Federal Register Notice on Confidentiality Criteria at the U.S. Census Bureau [PDF 56k]