Since the first U.S. Census was carried out in 1790, the Census Bureau has expanded its mission and now collects information about occupation, education, income and other personal data. The datasets are useful, but confidentiality becomes harder to preserve, Nextgov reports. A research team led by a Duke University Prof. Jerry Reiter and Cornell University Prof. John Abowd has developed an approach to solving this problem by using synthetic data or “simulated data generated from statistical models,” the report states. “A query that can be asked of the confidential data can also be asked of the synthetic data,” Abowd said.
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