Confidentiality/Privacy Notification Experiment Plan

Census 2010 Confidentiality/Privacy Notification Experiment

Individual Request for Clearance

April 16, 2009

The U.S. Census Bureau plans to conduct the Census 2010 Privacy Notification (C/PN) Experiment under the 2010 Census Program for Evaluations and Experiments (CPEX) generic clearance (OMB approval number 0607-XXXX). The 2010 C/PN Experiment will test alternative presentation and placement of privacy and confidentiality messages in the cover letter for the initial and replacement questionnaires. The Census Bureau developed these experimental treatments with the intent of including a message that is more easily understood by respondents. At the same time, the content of the message is expanded to meet an overall goal of the Census Bureau, which is to increase the transparency of its work to the public.

The goal of the C/PN Experiment is to provide quantitative information that will aid in the development of statements for potential use in the 2020 census questionnaire mailing packages. The Census Bureau plans to measure the effect on housing unit response rates of an administrative records use message, and of an alternative statistical purpose message on the initial questionnaire cover letter.

No updates to Confidentiality/Privacy Notification Experiment description appearing in 2010 Census Program for Evaluations and Experiments (CPEX) generic clearance (OMB approval number 0607-XXXX) for the following:

• Universe and Respondent Selection

• Procedures for Collecting Information

• Methods to Maximize Response

• Tests of Procedures and Measures

• Contact for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

Estimate of Burden Hours

Because experimental forms are official census responses and substitute for the standard census form that would otherwise be sent to the households involved in the experiments, most respondent burden hour estimates are already accounted for in the 2010 Census. The burden hour estimate for the Census 2010 C/PN Experiment is zero because its burden has already been accounted for by the 2010 Census (OMB number 0607-0919).

Experiment/Evaluation	Total # of Respondents	Estimated Response Time	Estimated Burden Hours
C/PN	40,000	10 minutes	0 (6,667 already accounted for)

Project Schedule

Data collection for this project is the same as the 2010 Census production schedule.

Costs To Federal Government

The preliminary estimated cost to the Federal Government for the C/PN is $200,000. The Census Bureau is the only agency bearing this cost.

Contact(s) for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

For questions on statistical methods or the data collection described above, please contact Jason Machowski of the Decennial Management Division at the Census Bureau (Phone: 301-763-4173 or email [email protected], or Erin Love of the Decennial Management Division at the Census Bureau (Phone: 301-763-2034 or email [email protected]).

List of Attachments

Attachment Number	Type of Form	Form Number	Form Description
Attachment A	Advance Letter	D-5L	Standard 2010 Advance Letter
Attachment B	Advance Letter Envelope	D-5	Standard 2010 Advance Letter Envelope
Attachment C	Initial Questionnaire Outgoing Envelope	D-6A (IN)	Standard 2010 IQ Outgoing Envelope
Attachment D	Initial Questionnaires	D-1 XA	Control A: Standard 2010 Questionnaire (including help line telephone number only for experimental cases)
Attachment E	Initial Questionnaire Return Envelope	D-8A X1	2010 CPEX IQ Return Envelope (no postal tracking)
Attachment F	Initial Questionnaire Cover Letter	D-16L	Standard 2010 IQ Cover Letter
Attachment G		D-16L X9	2010 Experimental IQ Cover Letter Version 9 (Privacy Message 1)
Attachment H		D-16L X10	2010 Experimental IQ Cover Letter Version 10 (Privacy Message 2)
Attachment I	Reminder Postcard	D-9	Standard 2010 Reminder Postcard
Attachment J	Replacement Questionnaire Outgoing Envelope	D-6C (IN)	Standard 2010 RQ Outgoing Envelope
Attachment D	Replacement Questionnaires	D-1 XA	Control A: Standard 2010 Questionnaire (with CPEX phone numbers)
Attachment K	Replacement Questionnaire Return Envelope	D-8C (IN)	2010 CPEX RQ Return Envelope (no postal tracking)
Attachment L	Replacement Questionnaire Cover Letter	D-17L	Standard 2010 RQ Cover Letter
Attachment M		D-17L X2	2010 Experimental RQ Cover Letter Version 2 (Privacy Message 1)
Attachment N		D-17L X3	2010 Experimental RQ Cover Letter Version 3 (Privacy Message 2)

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