2010 Census Production Settings Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Demonstration Noisy Measurement File (ICPSR 38777)
Version Date: Nov 10, 2023 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
John M. Abowd, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Robert Ashmead, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Ryan Cumings-Menon, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Simson Garfinkel, (formerly) United States. Bureau of the Census;
Micah Heineck, Knexus Research Corporation;
Christine Heiss, Knexus Research Corporation;
Robert Johns, Knexus Research Corporation;
Daniel Kifer, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Philip Leclerc, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Ashwin Machanavajjhala, Duke University;
Tumult Labs;
Brett Moran, United States. Bureau of the Census;
William Sexton, (formerly) United States. Bureau of the Census;
Tumult Labs;
Matthew Spence, United States. Bureau of the Census;
Pavel Zhuravlev, United States. Bureau of the Census
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38777.v2
Version V2 (see more versions)
Summary View help for Summary
The 2010 Census Production Settings Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Demonstration Noisy Measurement Files are an intermediate output of the 2020 Census Disclosure Avoidance System (DAS) TopDown Algorithm (TDA) (as described in Abowd, J. et al [2022], and implemented in https://github.com/uscensusbureau/DAS_2020_Redistricting_Production_Code). The NMF was produced using the official "production settings," the final set of algorithmic parameters and privacy-loss budget allocations that were used to produce the 2020 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File and the 2020 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics File.
The NMF consists of the full set of privacy-protected statistical queries (counts of individuals or housing units with particular combinations of characteristics) of confidential 2010 Census data relating to the redistricting data portion of the 2010 Demonstration Data Products Suite - Redistricting and Demographic and Housing Characteristics File - Production Settings (2023-04-03). These statistical queries, called "noisy measurements" were produced under the zero-Concentrated Differential Privacy framework (Bun, M. and Steinke, T [2016]; see also
Dwork C. and Roth, A. [2014]) implemented via the discrete Gaussian mechanism (Cannone C., et al., [2023]), which added positive or negative integer-valued noise to each of the resulting counts. The noisy measurements are an intermediate stage of the TDA prior to the post-processing the TDA then performs to ensure internal and hierarchical consistency within the resulting tables. The Census Bureau has released these 2010 Census demonstration data to enable data users to evaluate the expected impact of disclosure avoidance variability on 2020 Census data. The 2010 Census Production Settings Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Demonstration Noisy Measurement Files (2023-04-03) have been cleared for public dissemination by the Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board (CBDRB-FY22-DSEP-004).
The data include zero-Concentrated Differentially Private (zCDP) (Bun, M. and Steinke, T [2016]) noisy measurements, implemented via the discrete Gaussian mechanism. These are estimated counts of individuals and housing units included in the 2010 Census Edited File (CEF), which includes confidential data initially collected in the 2010 Census of Population and Housing. The noisy measurements included in this file were subsequently post-processed by the TopDown Algorithm (TDA) to produce the 2010 Census Production Settings Privacy-Protected Microdata File - Redistricting (P.L. 94-171) and Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (2023-04-03) (https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/program-management/data-product- planning/2010-demonstration-data-products/04 Demonstration_Data_Products_Suite/2023-04-03/). As these 2010 Census demonstration data are intended to support study of the design and expected impacts of the 2020 Disclosure Avoidance System, the 2010 CEF records were pre-processed before application of the zCDP framework. This pre-processing converted the 2010 CEF records into the input-file format, response codes, and tabulation categories used for the 2020 Census, which differ in substantive ways from the format, response codes, and tabulation categories originally used for the 2010 Census.
The NMF provides estimates of counts of persons in the CEF by various characteristics and combinations of characteristics, including their reported race and ethnicity, whether they were of voting age, whether they resided in a housing unit or one of 7 group quarters types, and their census block of residence, after the addition of discrete Gaussian noise (with the scale parameter determined by the privacy-loss budget allocation for that particular query under zCDP). Noisy measurements of the counts of occupied and vacant housing units by census block are also included. Lastly, data on constraints--information into which no noise was infused by the Disclosure Avoidance System (DAS) and used by the TDA to post-process the noisy measurements into the 2010 Census Production Settings Privacy-Protected Microdata File - Redistricting (P.L. 94-171) and Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (2023-04-03) --are provided.
These data are available for download (i.e. not restricted access). Due to their size, they must be downloaded through the link on this metadata page and not through the standard ICPSR download. The link will take you to the Globus site where these data are housed. A README file is located in the Globus repository. Please refer to that for pertinent information.
The Globus holding site requires users to create an account to access these data. Accounts can be created through existing institutional access and by personal access.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
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Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
- Copies of the original data collection forms and instruments can be found at: Decennial Census Questionnaires and Instructions
- Visit the U.S. Census Bureau's Disclosure Avoidance Modernization page to learn more about the use of differential privacy in the 2020 Census.
- Additional 2010 demonstration data that incorporate the final production settings chosen for both the 2020 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171) Summary File and the Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (DHC) can be found on the U.S. Census Bureau web site.
Data Source View help for Data Source
The primary source for the 2010 Census Production Settings Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Demonstration Noisy Measurement File (2023-04-03) was direct collection of responses from the population of the United States. A number of source documents are useful for understanding the NMFs. Chief among these are:
- 2010 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File Technical Documentation redistricting-file-pl-94-171.html
- 2020 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File Technical Documentation complete-technical-documents.html#redistricting
- DAS 2020 Redistricting Production Code Release (public GitHub repository for the 2020 Census DAS, vintaged as of the commit used to produce the official production run of the Redistricting product. The zCDP framework NMFs were generated in a for-internal-use-only pickled (https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html; https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/api/python/reference/api/pyspark.SparkContext.pickleFile.html) form as a byproduct of the use of this code. A stand-alone script was developed and used to convert these internal-use NMFs into the Parquet format used in this product (that script is not yet publicly available).
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2023-04-03
Version History View help for Version History
2023-11-10 Modifications to identifiers within the parquet metadata used to support internal tracking of source data.
Notes
These data are freely available to data users at ICPSR member institutions. The curation and dissemination of this study are provided by the institutional members of ICPSR. How do I access ICPSR data if I am not at a member institution?
This study is provided by Resource Center for Minority Data (RCMD).