Privacy
The U.S. Census Bureau is bound by law to protect your answers and keep them strictly confidential. In fact, every employee takes an oath to protect your personal information for life. Violating the oath carries a stiff penalties for all Census Bureau workers- a fine up to $250,000 and/or up to five years in prison.
This information will always continue to be protected and secured, and you can be assured that this information is only used for statistical purposes in order to help decisions for new hospitals, schools and roads, for example. The Census Bureau also has a team or cybersecurity experts who monitor and protect all agency technology around the clock. This cybersecurity is guaranteed to meet the highest standards for protecting your information. From the moment we collect your responses, our goal- and legal obligation- is to keep them safe.
Our Legal Duty To Protect Your Information
The Census Bureau is bound by Title 13 of the U.S. Code to keep your information confidential.
Under Title 13, the Census Bureau cannot release any identifiable information about you, your home, or your business, even to law enforcement agencies. The law ensures that your private data is protected and that your answers cannot be used against you by any government agency or court.
The answers you provide are used only to produce statistics. You are kept anonymous: The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in any way that could identify you or anyone else in your home.
Data Protection and Privacy Program
Being responsible stewards of your data is not only required by law, it is embedded in Census Bureau culture. Strict policies and statistical safeguards help protect the confidentiality of your information. Before releasing data products, the Census Bureau verifies that they meet its confidentiality standards.
Secure Technology
From the beginning of the data collection process, the Census Bureau follows industry best practices and federal requirements to protect your data.
The security of Census Bureau systems is a top priority, and our IT infrastructure is designed to defend against and contain cyberthreats. We continually refine our approach to identifying, preventing, detecting, and responding to these threats.