Trump administration bans differential privacy and modern data protection techniques for 2030 US Census, restricting federal agencies to 1970s-era methods despite legal confidentiality requirements and half-century of scientific progress.

An American privacy emergency: Guest post from Cynthia Dwork et al.

Scott’s foreword: Cynthia Dwork is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and a pioneer in the fields of differential privacy and algorithmic fairness. On my recent travels to the SigmaWest science camp and then STOC, there was much talk about a recent Trump administration action that would ban not only differential privacy, but essentially all modern techniques for preserving privacy in large datasets, for example in the 2030 US Census. I realize that many of us have “outrage ...