the role of ethics in a federal statistical agency a presentation to the us census bureau june 9,...

The Role of Ethics in a Federal Statistical Agency

A presentation to the US Census BureauJune 9, 2010

William Seltzer

(Fordham University)

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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Outline

A. Introduction

B. A few widely-applicable ethical issues

C. Ethical issues of special relevance to the work of a federal statistical agency

D. Ethical responsibility at the Census Bureau: three examples

A. Introduction• My talk today draws on three related streams

of work: (1) a talk I gave to the Washington Statistical Society early in 2001 on “U.S. Federal Statistics and Statistical Ethics;” (2) the results of research that Professor Anderson and I have carried out over the past decade, largely focused on the Census Bureau; and (3) a short course, “Professional Ethics and the work of a National Statistical Office” I presented at the ISI session in 2009.

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A. Introduction -- continued

• Much of this work is documented on a website that Professor Anderson and I jointly maintain, https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/margo/www/govstat/integrity.htm,

• In order not to just rehash my 2001 and 2009 presentations, I have tailored my remarks today to focus somewhat more directly on issues related to the Census Bureau than the title of my talk might suggest.

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/margo/www/govstat/integrity.htm


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1. Need to balance conflicting ethical principles

2. Different approaches to ethical norms

3. Need for perspective: not every difference of opinion about methods, analysis, or conclusions is really an ethical dispute

4. Plagiarism

5. Responsibility to cite sources and describe methods and quality

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• Since the first three of these general topics are of particular importance in thinking about ethics in the work of a federal statistical agency, I will begin by reviewing them briefly.

• I believe I do not need to say anything specific to this audience about avoiding plagiarism and the need to cite sources.

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1. Need to balance conflicting ethical principles

• Different ethical principles may conflict with one another.

For example, in statistics there is often a conflict between the obligation to provide users with very finely grained data and the obligation to protect data providers from possible disclosures and any ensuing harm.

• There is often no single right way to reconcile such conflicting ethical principles.

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2. Different approaches to ethical norms

There are several different ways of understanding ethical norms. Three widely recognized approaches are:

• Deontological (Absolute rules. For example, the 10 Commandments)

• Utilitarian (For example, the greatest good for the greatest number)

• Rawlsian (High priority given to social justice)

Each approach has its own shortcomings

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3. The importance of perspective

• Of course, ethics are important

• However, not every difference of opinion about methods, analysis, or conclusions is really an ethical dispute

• In thinking about perspective, it is important to be aware of the consequences of decisions for many different stakeholders, including the powerless and vulnerable

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C. Ethical issues of special relevance to the work of a federal statistical

agency

1. Law, policy, and ethics: overlaps, differences, and sources of authority

2. Integrity of the statistical agency and its outputs

3. Use of very out-of-date methods

4. Statistical confidentiality

5. Administration of a statistical agency

6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools

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1. Law, policy, and ethics: overlaps,

differences, and sources of authority

• When working in a government statistical agency, one has to serve many masters. They include the following:

i. One’s immediate supervisors

ii. Their supervisors

iii. The agency head (or if you are the agency head, the person or board

to whom you report)

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1. Law, policy, and ethics -- continued

• One must also serve several different kinds of impersonal authorities. They include:

i. The law (those explicitly pertaining to statistics and other laws)

ii. Government and agency policies

iii. Scientific standards (statistical science and relevant subject-matter science)

iv. The needs and interests of data users

v. Professional ethics (statistical and those of subject-matter professions) as well as agency ethical standards

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Some Non-Statutory Sources of Authority

(a) Statistical policy• Various standards and policy directives of the OMB related

to statistical programs and standards.

• The current (4th) edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency published by the National Academies Press.

• Relevant portions of the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 15, Volume 1, Subtitle A, Chapter I--Bureau of the Census, and Subtitle B, Chapter I--Bureau of the Census.

• United Nations Statistics Division, various standards and international recommendations.


(b) Statistical ethics• U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of The Assistant

General Counsel for Administration, Ethics Law and Programs Division, “Summary of Ethics Rules - Bureau of the Census, 2010,” available at http://www.ogc.doc.gov/ethics.html

• American Statistical Association Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice. Available at http://www.amstat.org/about/ethicalguidelines.cfm

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• UN Statistical Commission “Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.” Available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/statorg/FP-English.htm

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http://www.ogc.doc.gov/ethics.html

http://www.amstat.org/about/ethicalguidelines.cfm

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/statorg/FP-English.htm

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• Usually, the dictates of the law, sound scientific standards, agency policies, the instructions of supervisors, and ethics all point in the same direction

• At times, however, these personal and impersonal masters may be in conflict and pull us in different directions

• Note that for ethical transgressions and many crimes simply following the law or following orders is no excuse

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2. Integrity of agency and outputs

(a) Policy

(b) Staffing

(c) Fixed release dates

(d) Suppression of results

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2. Integrity of agency and outputs:(a) Agency policies

• Agency policies should --

be based largely on statistical and subject-matter grounds, taking into account political priorities (broadly defined)

be guided by the interests of the full range of data users and the responding public

resist efforts to let short-term partisan political priorities drive policy decisions on structure, staffing, methods, and outputs

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2. Integrity of agency and outputs: (b) Staffing

• Qualifications and experience

• Professional outlook and sense of responsibility

• Broadly reflecting the diversity of the country

• Identification with the agency and the statistical profession

• Nevertheless, the hiring of otherwise qualified political referrals is not in itself unethical

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2. Integrity of agency and outputs: (c) Fixed release dates

• Release dates for politically-sensitive statistical series (for example, release of the consumer price index or the unemployment rate) should be scheduled well in advance

• This schedule should be adhered to and the release dates for such series should not be determined by short-term political considerations

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2. Integrity of agency and outputs: (d) Suppression of results

• Planned statistical outputs should always be released, unless there are strong professional reasons for not doing so

• If a planned output is not released, a detailed methodological output should be issued in its place, documenting the shortcomings in the planned output and presenting at least summary results

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3. Use of very out-of-date methods

• The failure to update methodologies to take into account evolving scientific understandings or the changed circumstances of the country and its population, if delayed too long, can become a serious ethical issue

• We are not talking here about 5 or 10 year delays, but those extending to decades

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4. Statistical confidentiality

• The confidentiality of personal information provided to government statistical authorities during population censuses and similar statistical operations is a well-established principle, at least among statisticians

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4. Statistical confidentiality - continued

• Most sets of ethical norms in the field of statistics base the responsibility for maintaining statistical confidentiality, either explicitly or implicitly, on the grounds that such disclosures may lead to respondent harm

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• For example, the ISI’s 1985 Ethics Declaration states,

“the information provided shall not be used to harm data providers.”

• Similarly, Section 8 of Title 13 of the U.S. Code states,

“In no case shall information furnished under the authority of this section be used to the detriment of the persons to whom such information relates.”

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• And the United Nation’s Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, in principle 6, defines the concept in these words,

“Individual data collected by statistical agencies for statistical compilation, whether they refer to natural or legal persons, are to be strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical purposes.”


• Unfortunately, the Commerce Department’s ethical standards for the Census Bureau treats this ethical obligation in very narrow legalistic terms (narrower indeed than Title 13) referring to it as simply a duty to “safeguard non-public information ... until disclosure is authorized,” all under the rubric, “Misuse of Government Resources.”

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• I would stress that in the United States statistical confidentiality is both an ethical obligation and a legal requirement. This, raises the question, if the confidentiality law were to change tomorrow, would our ethical obligations also change?

• This same ethical norm is also reflected, at least to some degree, in the confidentiality provisions of census and statistical laws adopted in most countries

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• Statistical confidentiality laws are of two broad types:

(1) those that prohibit disclosures for all types of non-statistical uses, and

(2) those that permit disclosures for certain important non-statistical state purposes

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• Note that laws of the first type may permit some disclosures considered as harmless (for example, sharing data among statistical agencies to foster enhanced analytical possibilities)

• Such strong statistical confidentiality laws adhere closely to the ethical principle that the personal information provided will not be used to harm or target individuals

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• Unfortunately a number of countries, whether by tradition or in response to perceived national threats, have weaker, or weakened, statistical confidentiality laws that allow for a distinction between authorized and unauthorized disclosures without reference to the issue of individual harm, and only bar the latter


• To help put this important distinction between “strong” and “weak” confidentiality laws into some kind of context:

• In the United States, the Census Bureau’s Title 13 and the NCHS confidentiality statute are of the strong type, while the law governing the NCES was transformed by the Patriot Act from a strong to a weak law

• The UK confidentiality law is of the weak type31

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• To better understand the implications of this distinction, it is useful to consider how disclosures of personal information provided to census and statistical agencies arise

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• Such disclosures arise from three main sources:

1) inadvertent disclosures (for example, lost laptops or flash drives, enumeration records erroneously put in the general trash, misdirected mail),

2) ad hoc disclosures (for example, those attributable to individual hackers, disgruntled or over-zealous census staff, or gossipy interviewers), and

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3) targeted disclosures (These arise from the efforts of government or private sector entities external to the government statistical system to obtain personal information for some non-statistical purpose)

• The first two sources primarily use what might be termed “back-door” methods of obtaining this information, that is, by means of unauthorized disclosures prohibited by the confidentiality provisions common to nearly all census and statistical acts

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• The third type of disclosures, those arising from the efforts of other governmental agencies to gain access to personal information obtained in the census for non-statistical purposes, generally derive from the use of so-called “front-door” methods, that is, by means of the authorized disclosures permitted under weak confidentiality laws

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• This distinction between “front-” and “back-door” disclosures is important, both from policy and ethical perspectives. Many discussions of statistical confidentiality either ignore this distinction or focus only on methods used to deter “back-door” disclosures

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• However, it is the “front-door” disclosures that pose the most serious ethical threat, having been associated in a number of countries with substantial harm to vulnerable individuals or population subgroups

• Such misuse of information has negatively impacted census and survey response rates for decades

• Moreover, even inadvertent disclosures can have a very negative impact on the reputation of a statistical agency

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5. Administration of a statistical agency

• Managing the staff and financial resources allocated to a statistical agency imposes a number of additional ethical obligations on those with managerial responsibilities, from the agency head on down

• These ethical obligations are not normally covered in professional ethics statements of statistical societies. They are well-covered in the ethics document issued by the Commerce Department

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5. Administration of a statistical agency -- concluded

These ethical responsibilities include:

• Treating staff fairly and impartially• Managing the financial affairs of the agency

honestly and in a transparent manner, both with respect to resources provided from the government budget and resources earned by the agency for services or outputs provided

• Avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest with respect to both personnel and financial management

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6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools

• (a) Prevention strategies and safeguards

It is helpful to think of prevention strategies under several broad headings. I identify six as central:

(i) strong laws

(ii) close links among government statistical agencies

(iii) close links to major user groups and the news media

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6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools – (a) Prevention - conclusion

(iv) an active professional statistical society with membership drawn from academia, business and industry, the non-profit sector, and government

(v) a spirit of openness and transparency with members of all political parties or groups,

(vi) policies that encourage the study and documentation of past threats to the integrity at the statistical agency and that facilitate the dissemination of the results of such studies

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6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools – (b) Ways of coping

• When an actual threat to the integrity of an agency emerges, the key defense will be in the contacts previously established among the various groups of data users and other stake holders in a sound, well functioning, and non-political statistical system

• A diverse group of such stake-holders may have political contacts well beyond those directly available to any one agency

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6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools – (b) Coping - continued

• More serious coping tools:

(1) Approaches to the press and other media (open and discrete)

(2) Resignation (threats or actual) – by the agency head, senior staff, or mass resignations

(3) Deliberate refusal to carry out ethically irresponsible actions

(4) Other types of pro-active responses

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6. Prevention and coping strategies and tools – (b) Coping - concluded

• I would stress that the goal of a robust set of prevention strategies is to minimize the need to ever have to consider using these more serious coping tools. Nevertheless, they all have been used over the years, including the Australian census director, who, in the 1890s, had the census schedules destroyed rather than turn them over to the police

D. Ethical responsibility at the Census Bureau: Three example

•As most of you know, Professor Anderson and I have written extensively on what we consider to have been some serious ethical weaknesses at the Census Bureau in the past. I do not intend to raise these issues today.

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D. Ethical responsibility at the Census Bureau - continued

• Instead I want to review, today, three instances, over the years, where Bureau leadership or staff took strong ethical stances

• I do so with the hope that these stories may become better known and serve to help promote ethical thinking and responses at critical times in the future

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• Case I. Vincent P. Barabba

Vince Barabba was appointed Census Director twice: by President Nixon in 1973 and by President Carter in 1979. In 1980, in one of the many law suits the Census Bureau faced relating to the census undercount, the Bureau was ordered by a Federal Court to turn over to New York State and City officials the master address lists used in the 1980 Census. Director Barabba, after the Bureau lost several appeals, exposed himself to a contempt citation by refusing an order to provide these lists.

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Justifying his position, Director Barabba stated,

“Federal statutory law prohibits disclosure of information on these lists because such disclosures would seriously distort public perception of the Bureau’s ability to guarantee confidentiality. This in effect would undermine public confidence in the confidentiality of personal information.”


He also emphasized that Title 13 “creates an absolute and unequivocal bar to the disclosure of any information submitted to the Bureau for statistical purposes and the Bureau cannot, by law, provide these data.”

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• Case II. Barbara A. Bailar

At the time of the 1980 Census, Barbara A. Bailar, a leading mathematical statistician at the Bureau, strongly opposed adjusting the census results for the estimated undercount on the grounds that insufficient research had been carried out on which to base such an adjustment. In the run-up to the 1990 Census, Dr. Bailar was Associate Director for statistical standards and methodology.

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• By then, she was convinced that the needed research had been done and strongly supported an undercount adjustment by the Bureau for the 1990 Census. Facing what she considered to be unwarranted political interference on a technical matter by officials in the Commerce Department, in late 1987, she resigned from her position as Associate Director in protest

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• Case III. Forrest E. LinderIn May 1942, Forrest E. Linder was a young

statistician working at the Census Bureau in the Vital Statistics Division. At that point he was sent out to California to work on an assignment for the Army and Cal Dedrick, the latter then hard at work using his expertise and 1940 Census data to assist the Army in rounding up all Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Dr. Linder’s task was to study “the problems involved in a general identity registration for military purposes.”

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At the end of his brief mission Dr. Linder submitted a 35 page report, “Memorandum Relating to a General Population Identity Registration for Military Purposes.” The report was a sound piece of technical work

However, deep in his report Linder observed, “Emphasis has already been given to the technical and administrative difficulties of general population registration for identity purposes. Mention should be made, also, of the political and psychological dangers.

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“Traditional American thinking regarding freedom of action and thought might consider a mandatory identification register as an infringement of that liberty and the beginning of an American “gestapo . . .”

The privacy and human rights issues raised by Dr. Linder were taken up, one way or another, by the other major participants in the policy debates concerning the population registration proposal

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Indeed, these non-technical issues raised by Dr. Linder were among the grounds cited by the Bureau of the Budget in its June 1943 decision to reject the general population registration proposal

As Professor Anderson and I have written elsewhere, Dr. Linder’s “initiative and courage also remains an example of the power of a single voice to raise an issue and effect an outcome.”


• In looking back at the lessons of these three examples, one may note that Vince Barabba and Barbara Bailar both used what may be termed “strong” coping methods, while Forrest Linder simply wrote a strong clear paragraph in a technical report.

• Barbara Bailar’s resignation did not change policy. By contrast, Vince Barabba and Forrest Linder succeeded in their policy goals. 56

Conclusion

• As I hope has been clear from this presentation, all of those who work in official statistics have a number of important ethical obligations to balance along with our legal and technical responsibilities.

• There is often no one right answer. That is, we are faced with choices.

• My goal today has been to help you become more aware that ethics has a role in making these choices as knowledgably and responsibly as possible.

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Thank you

• A copy of this PowerPoint presentation will be posted on the website:


That website also contains a number of other papers dealing with statistical ethics, particularly those related to statistical confidentiality.

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