Census Bureau dodges challenge to controversial privacy tool

By Mike Schneider Associated Press

Posted June 30, 2021 11:35 AM

The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday dodged a challenge for now to its use of a controversial statistical method aimed at keeping people’s data private in the numbers used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts after federal judges refused to stop the technique’s implementation. A panel of three federal judges in Alabama rejected the state of Alabama’s request for a preliminary injunction to halt the Census Bureau from using the method called differential privacy. The decision in federal court in Opelika …

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