[wxw]

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26)

> DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,”

> DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.”

> By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the disclosure avoidance techniques at the core of dozens of data releases over the last three decades.

> Civil servants will do their best to comply with this order while still following the laws that require them to protect the confidentiality of respondents’ data. To balance these competing mandates, they may seek to produce less data or coarsen data so much that it is unusable. Or they might be pushed by political actors to publish data that can be easily unmasked...

This current administration is cursed.

[bertil]

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice).

I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid of it… What could be the logic here?

[ano-ther]

From the second linked article, this could be a motive:

> People who were using Census data to actually reconstruct records could no longer do so. Demographers admitted that this was common practice. It's also an open secret that this was done by political operatives as part of gerrymandering efforts.

https://desfontain.es/blog/banning-noise.html

[throwawayqqq11]

You wont take away my tin hat here.

I think they are using any data source, private and public to compile enemy lists. We will see them use it to manipulate the mid term elections. Isnt it wise at this point to assume that extend of malignance and long term plannig?

[padjo]

The administration will do almost anything if asked, so long as the person asking is willing to offer tribute.

[mikestew]

That might be accurate, but it doesn’t answer the question asked.

[pseudosaid]

really? yes it does. a bribe is answer.

[Macha]

> The acting force behind this order is political interest, not scientific merit. DAO 216-26 bypassed legally required administrative procedures. It fulfills a promise made by the architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and reflects both the rhetoric and misunderstandings of representatives of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), an organization founded by OMB Director Russell Vought. CRA’s explainer on the use of differential privacy in the 2020 Census is up-front about the stakes: “Even if the citizenship question is added to the Census, it will be impossible to ascertain the status of individuals so long as differential privacy is used.”

So from its supporters own statements, because it makes it harder to identify non citizens in statistics.

Making it harder to identify non-citizens sounds like it’s easy to fit into the amorphous bucket of things they don’t like of “wokeness”.

The other thing to consider is the current administration has plenty of chaos and snap decisions at its top level but at its mid level and among its backers are plenty of people able to take a more long term view of what they want and how to get there.

[BoppreH]

It could have been as simple as "noise infusion" being interpreted as "adding fake data". Especially if you don't trust the people adding the noise.

Wouldn't be the first administrative action taken at a keyword-level of understanding.

This could have also been how the administration got convinced by someone with deeper understanding and specific goals.

[ls612]

It fucks over every econometric technique that researchers use (by design) I’ve been hearing people in academia beating the drum about this since like 2021.

[atoav]

It is not cursed. It is actively trying to cement its own power like the authoritarian fascists they are. And some of you still pretend if they just cheer enough for dear leader the tide will turn for them as well. As if this all was just a sports game where you have to cheer for your team even if they actively break the rules.

[red-iron-pine]

the current administration is owned by billionaires and foreign interests.

both want to see the US government collapse.

a lot of people are going to have to go to jail, hang, or be exiled before anyone will take the US seriously again.

where are all of these chickenhawk 2nd amendment gun nuts now? they'll talk about FREEDOM while the house burns down around them.

[jackpirate]

Coursening is not as elegant as differential privacy. But using coursening is not a "privacy emergency", it is a very-slightly-less-accurate census. And no one knows what the actual economic impacts of this level of accuracy difference are.

I would love to see the more elegant techniques used, and also have the intuition that this is bad policy, but I don't see the "emergency" here. Labeling it as such just histrionic to me.

[censusnerd]

Well, it's not just that they'll publish the same data with minimal protection. Which IMO is pretty disastrous. The likely consequence is that the Census Bureau just won't publish data, because confidentiality can't be sufficiently protected w/o noise infusion. That's a lot of data products (and detailed info in those products) that Census Bureau just won't be able publish anymore. For example, I can't really see race and ethnicity data being published at granular geographies anymore--and that's required for redistricting and whatever is left of the voting rights act.