A disclosure is the public release of protected information that makes it possible to determine the reported value, characteristic, or identity of a data subject, whether it is an individual or an organization.
If a user can closely estimate a respondent's reported value from a published aggregate statistic, then EIA defines that statistic as sensitive to disclosing identifiable information. Aggregate data that are identified as sensitive must be withheld or modified through some statistical method. EIA uses various statistical methods to protect sensitive data such as top or bottom coding, noise addition, rounding, and cell suppression.
When a data table includes both data protected under CIPSEA and other data not protected under CIPSEA, all data are treated as protected under CIPSEA, and respondent information should not be identifiable from the table.
