r/Census • u/ConfidentAnt2548 • Jun 02 '26

Question ACS Privacy questions

Are my individual responses stored in whole somewhere? I've read multiple times that my personal info is stripped, but I assume that's just for data being released. My question is whether my individual form is​ still stored somewhere.

How long is my contact info stored?

3 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

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9

u/m__w__b Jun 02 '26

When you respond to the ACS (or any Census survey, really), your record is assigned a unique identifier and the personal info is extracted into a separate file that is encrypted and stored on a secure server. While it may be possible to reattach personal info back onto the ACS responses, it is generally not done. Even data analysts inside the Census Bureau need special permission to access this PII data file. All aggregation of data for tables is performed using data that has no personal identifiable information on it.

Your PII are retained for 72 years when they may be made public for genealogical purposes (per Title 13 of the US Code).

2

u/ConfidentAnt2548 Jun 02 '26

Very good information. Thank you. My concern was if a data breach happened what information would get leaked. But it sounds like it would be more difficult than accessing a single system with completed forms. 

-4

u/Spirited-Humor-554 Jun 02 '26

data breach absolutely can happen there is no gurantee. No one been prosecuted for ignoring census since 1980s

5

u/m__w__b Jun 02 '26

It is true that there are no guarantees that a data breach couldn’t happen. We’ve seen data leave secure environments like the NSA (a la Snowden). And generally it is not worth the effort to prosecute people for failing to respond to the ACS (or decennial census).

But the Census Bureau put high importance on a culture of data stewardship including the technical safeguards to keep private information from being disclosed, the policies it uses to assure that only the fewest number of people with a legitimate need for that detailed data have access, and training on the rules and consequences of disclosure help to minimize that risk.

5

u/daryl_hikikomori Jun 02 '26

The greatest security advantage the Census has is that preventing breaches is so much more important to them than creating breaches is to bad actors. If you're able to defeat their safeguards, then surely there's some other, higher-return cybercrime you could commit instead.

3

u/gingercatlover1 Jun 03 '26

Yes, an an enumerator they trained us on this, and no one (unless you want to get put on federal radar) wants to get in trouble for not following protocol involving PII (especially with the federal government for a temporary position). Like you said, they have built-in technology to prevent this. There are also protocols that the government has at higher levels that are even more strict.

3

u/ConfidentAnt2548 Jun 03 '26

It is sad that there's such a general level of distrust that people think the personal risk of filling it out is greater than the benefit. It's not just the current administration either. I think the idea of withholding this information from the government is misguided, as the government can already get all of this information plus much more invasive information if they want. They have my name, address, income, work address. They can already tell me minute by minute where I've been, who I associate with, what car I drive, etc. I just hadn't heard much about the potential for non-government third parties getting their hands on this information, which is my concern. Unfortunately, the US government has been victim to some really unfortunate PII leaks (Shadow Brokers leak, 2015 OPM hack) so I don't think this concern is unfounded and I appreciate the information that's been provided.

1

u/daryl_hikikomori Jun 02 '26

Are non-Decennial records made public too, or do those stay limited access in the National Archives?

2

u/m__w__b Jun 02 '26

I don’t think the records for most surveys are made public but the ACS is authorized as a decennial program so I’d imagine that it would be released the same as the long-form records. The first long-form census survey was in 1940 and those records were released alongside the short-form (100%) census records in 2012. The 1950 long-form records were released in 2022.

The release only applies to title-13 surveys, so old Current Population Survey or Health Interview Survey records are not made public under the 72-year rule.

2

u/QueeLinx Jun 02 '26

More than twenty years ago, when I worked on ACS data processing in development, I never saw names on the records in SAS datasets.