Temporary Census workers may have violated the law by disclosing resident information to websites to track down respondents, according to a new report from the Commerce Departments Office of Inspector General. Under Title 13 of the United States Code, “individuals may be fined up to $5,000 and imprisoned not more than 5 years for disclosing Census Bureau data,” something they may have been doing if they inputted Census information into search engines.
The report also documents other concerns over whether the 600,000 temporary Census workers were following procedure. These workers, called “enumerators,” are responsible for determining “the status of households that received questionnaires in March but did not mail them back.” According to the report, procedures for asking race and ethnicity questions are not being followed, completed enumeration questionnaires are not being tracked, and incorrect information is appearing on “notice of visit” forms.
Even more alarming is that “almost one-third of the enumerations [the inspector general] observed were proxy interviews.” As the report states:
To be fair, the manual doesn’t encourage such a practice, but it doesn’t explicitly prohibit it either. Which begs the question: The bureau is providing employees with sensitive information that may be unlawful to share — why is it not bending over backwards to ensure it is kept confidential?
The Examiner called the Census Bureau and is awaiting a response.
