Public attitudes toward data sharing by federal agencies

Investigated whether confidence in the US Census Bureau's promise of confidentiality would be shaped by demographics and more general attitudes of trust in the government. Specifically, it was predicted that better educated people would have more confidence in the promise of confidentiality, and that Blacks would have less confidence in such an assurance. 646 adults were interviewed regarding concern about data sharing, trust in government, confidence in the Bureau's assurance of confidentiality, information about data sharing, political efficacy, and willingness to have agencies share data. The results show that the more trust and confidence respondents had in the government, and the greater their sense of political efficacy, the more willing they were to have agencies share data. Income was positively associated with willingness to have government agencies share data. There was no significant relationship between education and confidence in the assurance of confidentiality. An appendix of question wording and response distributions for concepts used in the analysis is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)