What’s Private? An Historical Examination of the Complaints about Census Questions, 1790-Present

Margo Anderson, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Recent controversies about the invasion of privacy and surveillance in the 21st century digital world, and research on how ‘privacy’ complaints were framed in the past, offer the opportunity to explore whether what the public considers “private,” has changed over time. Using the decennial census and its controversies about what to ask as a test bed, the paper will explore how the complaints have changed over time, how the survey research community, including census officials, handled them, and what we might learn about the legacy of past privacy controversies that is relevant to current concerns about state or private sector surveillance of the public or consumers.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 159. Building and Interpreting Censuses I