Editor’s Note: Due to COVID-19, dates and formats for meetings, conferences, and workshops may change. Please check event websites often for updates.

As differential privacy is applied to various 2020 Census data products to help protect the privacy of individuals, where does formal privacy go?

The Joint Statistical Meetings invited session “Private Data for the Public Good: Formal Privacy in Survey Organizations” and associated roundtable discussion are organized to help answer that question.

Included will be discussions about the current state of formal privacy methods in relation to survey organizations and the Census Bureau’s formal privacy research agenda for complex survey statistics: 

• Frauke Kreuter, Will Differential Privacy Affect Social Science Research Workflow?
• Quentin Brummet and Brandon Sepulvado, The Effect on Data Utility of Using Differential Privacy Techniques to Produce Estimates of the Cost of Child Care
• Aleksandra Slavkovic, How to Achieve Optimal Statistical Inference Under Formal Privacy: A General Framework and Specific Examples  
• John Abowd, The Formal Privacy Research Agenda for Complex Survey Statistics

The roundtable discussion, led by Slavkovic, is designed to continue the discussions with the session’s speakers.

Other committee activities, including slides from past webinars, can be seen on the Committee on Privacy and Confidentiality website.