# Census Data Access Crosswalk [[Census Data Products Tree]] maps what the count publishes. This map answers the next question and the harder one: **can a citizen actually get at it, and at what price.** Six rungs, from a browser tab that costs nothing to a secure facility that costs twenty thousand dollars a year, and then a wall that no amount of money, standing or subpoena power gets over. The organizing fact is an asymmetry written into [[Title 13]] itself. **Refusing to answer the census is punishable by a fine of not more than $100** under 13 U.S.C. § 221. **Disclosing another person's answer is punishable by five years in federal prison** under § 214 — and the Census Bureau's own training carries the practical maximum fine as $250,000, because 18 U.S.C. § 3571 supersedes the $5,000 written in the 1954 text. The government punishes its own custodians roughly two thousand times more severely than it punishes the respondent who tells it nothing. That ratio is the reason every rung on this ladder looks the way it does. The second organizing fact is that **the price of a rung is not indexed to how sensitive the data on it is.** The rung that hands a stranger individual-level records of other people ([[Public Use Microdata Sample]]) is free and instant. The rung that hands a person **their own record** costs $155 and takes weeks. And the rung that would hand a city its own address list — data the city arguably already possesses — is closed absolutely, by a unanimous Supreme Court. Price on this ladder tracks the Bureau's administrative cost, not the disclosure risk, and the two come apart at exactly the points where people get angry. Part of the census cluster routed from [[Census]]. Time-slice: routes, fees and status as of **September 24, 2026**. > [!note] How to read this chart > `■` = a rung or a frame block · `◆` = a sub-route within a rung · ` = what it costs · `⏱` = how long it takes · `✍` = what the requester must sign or swear · `⚖` = the penalty attached to that rung · `✕` = barred outright · `[live]` = in motion as of the build date · `[unconfirmed]` = on the record but not verifiable to a primary source at build time · `·` separates peer items on one line. Dollar figures are the published fees in force on the build date, and every one of them is dated in the Notes. Everything inside the fence is plain text; wikilinks live in the prose, Notes and See also. No officeholders are named inside the fence — the seats appear in the dated table below it. ``` CENSUS DATA ACCESS CROSSWALK — SIX ROUTES IN, AND THE PRICE OF EACH RUNG │ Legend: ■ rung/frame ◆ sub-route $ cost ⏱ wait ✍ oath or signature ⚖ penalty │ ✕ barred outright [live] in motion at build date [unconfirmed] not primary-sourced │ Time-slice: routes, fees and status as of Sept 24, 2026 │ ■ 0. THE FRAME — THE PENALTY ASYMMETRY THAT SETS EVERY RUNG BELOW │ ├─ ⚖ THE RESPONDENT WHO REFUSES ......... 13 U.S.C. § 221 │ fined not more than $100 · false answer: not more than $500 │ [no prison term · effectively never charged · no census prosecution since 1970] │ ├─ ⚖ THE CUSTODIAN WHO DISCLOSES ....... 13 U.S.C. § 214 │ imprisoned not more than 5 YEARS · statute says $5,000 │ [18 U.S.C. § 3571 raises the practical maximum to $250,000 — the figure the │ Bureau's own confidentiality training and its sworn-status briefings use] │ ✍ the § 23(c) oath is FOR LIFE. It does not end with employment. │ └─ ✱ THE RATIO IS THE DESIGN. The system threatens its own staff roughly 2,500x harder than it threatens a household that stonewalls it. Every rung below is priced and gated to keep the custodian out of prison, not to keep the citizen out. │ ■ RUNG 1 — AGGREGATED TABLES ...................... data.census.gov + the Census API │ who may ask ....... anyone, no identification, no stated purpose │ what you get ..... published tables: nation → region → state → county → tract │ → block group → block, for the deadlined products │ $ ................ FREE. API key free on request; no fee tier exists. │ ⏱ ............... instant │ ✍ ............... nothing │ ⚖ ............... none — the data is already disclosure-protected on release │ ✱ the protection is baked in BEFORE you see it: suppression and coarsening │ under DAO 216-26, noise infusion in the 2020 products it replaced │ ■ RUNG 2 — INDIVIDUAL RECORDS OF STRANGERS ................................... PUMS │ who may ask ....... anyone, no identification, no stated purpose │ what you get ..... the Public Use Microdata Sample: one row per person and │ per housing unit — real individual records, deliberately │ coarsened rather than aggregated │ the coarsening ... geography is truncated to the PUMA, which must contain │ ≥ 100,000 people at delineation; top-coding on income and │ age; rare categories collapsed; PUMAs redrawn each decade │ by the STATE DATA CENTERS, not by the Bureau │ $ ................ FREE │ ⏱ ............... instant │ ✍ ............... nothing │ ✱ THE LADDER'S FIRST INVERSION. This rung gives a stranger individual-level │ records at no cost and no oath. Rung 3 — your own record — costs $155. │ ■ RUNG 3 — YOUR OWN RECORD, BEFORE IT IS PUBLIC ............. Age Search Service │ who may ask ....... the NAMED PERSON only, or an heir or legal representative │ what you get ..... a transcript of your own entry in a census still closed │ under the 72-year rule — name, age, place of birth │ $ ................ $155 per search [raised from $65, effective Aug 7, 2026] │ + $50 expedited surcharge [raised from $20, same notice] │ the reason for $ .. 13 U.S.C. § 8(a) requires the service to be SELF-SUPPORTING. │ The fee is not a charge for privacy; it is the whole budget. │ The statute does NOT authorize a waiver — unlike FOIA. │ ⏱ ............... weeks, or one day at the surcharge │ ✍ ............... proof of identity and of relationship where claimed │ ⚑ [unconfirmed] census.gov search results carry the page title "Age Search │ Service on Pause" across many unrelated URLs, consistent with a site-wide │ alert banner. No pause text appears in the fetched page bodies and no │ Federal Register notice announces one. NOT asserted here. See Notes. │ ■ RUNG 4 — A TABLE THAT DOES NOT EXIST YET .............. Custom Tabulation (ACS) │ who may ask ....... any organization or individual │ what you get ..... a cross-tabulation built to your specification from │ microdata you will never touch │ $ ................ $4,000 MINIMUM; priced per request on complexity │ ⏱ ............... 8 WEEKS minimum — of which 4–6 weeks is DRB review alone │ ✍ ............... a specification, negotiated and then frozen │ ◆ the gate ....... the DISCLOSURE REVIEW BOARD. It can refuse, or return the │ table with cells suppressed, and the requester pays either way. The DRB is │ an internal Bureau body: no charter in statute, no published docket, no │ appeal to anyone outside the Bureau. │ ✱ this is the first rung where a HUMAN BEING decides what you may know. │ ■ RUNG 5 — RESTRICTED MICRODATA ........... SAP → Special Sworn Status → an FSRDC │ who may ask ....... a researcher with a STATISTICAL PURPOSE. Commercial, │ regulatory and ENFORCEMENT purposes are barred outright. │ what you get ..... the confidential files themselves, inside a secure │ facility, on an approved project, and nothing leaves the │ room until the DRB clears the output │ │ ◆ 5a. THE FRONT DOOR ......... Standard Application Process — sap.nsf.gov │ one form for 16 recognized statistical agencies; hosted by NSF, coordinated │ by the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy │ [live] replaced ResearchDataGov.org, which CLOSED PERMANENTLY June 16, 2026 │ ✱ the portal does NOT decide. Each agency decides on its own criteria. │ ⏱ Census review: 12 WEEKS MAXIMUM from receipt to decision — │ ≥ 2 subject-matter reviews · Policy Coordination Office · disclosure │ avoidance review · data availability review │ │ ◆ 5b. THE OATH ............... SPECIAL SWORN STATUS │ ✍ background investigation · fingerprinting · the § 23(c) lifetime oath │ ⏱ 3–4 MONTHS, and it runs AFTER the project is approved, not in parallel │ ⚑ U.S. residency 36 of the past 60 months, and continued residency │ throughout — a nationality-adjacent gate on who may study the data │ ⚖ once sworn, the researcher is inside § 214. Five years, same as staff. │ │ ◆ 5c. THE ROOM ............... 38 open FSRDC locations [as of Sept 4, 2026] │ $ Census Bureau data: NO direct charge to the researcher │ $ but the FACILITY charges. Consortium-affiliated: often free. │ NOT affiliated: $15,000 – $20,000 PER PROJECT PER YEAR. │ $ peer agencies stack on top — NCHS: $3,000 minimum project fee │ + $1,800 SSS application fee │ ✱ THE LADDER'S SECOND INVERSION. The statute charges nothing. The │ UNIVERSITY charges everything. Access is means-tested by institution, │ not by law — and no statute says so. │ ■ RUNG 6 — THE RECORD BECOMES FULLY PUBLIC .................... THE 72-YEAR RULE │ who may ask ....... anyone. No fee, no oath, no purpose, no Bureau at all. │ what you get ..... the actual enumeration sheet, names and all, at the │ National Archives │ $ ................ FREE │ ⏱ ............... 72 YEARS │ 1950 census ...... released April 1, 2022 │ 1960 census ...... due April 1, 2032 │ ◆ where 72 came from: NOT a privacy judgment. In 1942 the 1870 schedules │ were transferred to the Archives — 72 years after the count, by accident of │ filing. The 1952 Peel–Grover agreement (Oct 10, 1952) fixed that interval │ as policy; Pub. L. 95-416 (Oct 5, 1978) ratified the 1952 agreement in │ statute. Congress codified an accident and no one has revisited the number. │ ■ THE WALL — WHAT NO RUNG ON THIS LADDER REACHES │ ├─ ✕ FOIA ............... §§ 8(b) and 9(a) are valid Exemption 3 withholding │ statutes. Raw census data cannot be FOIA'd, and no public-interest balancing │ applies — Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S. 345 (1982), UNANIMOUS. │ ├─ ✕ CIVIL DISCOVERY .... the same provisions create a statutory PRIVILEGE under │ Rule 26(b)(1). Relevance does not defeat it. Necessity does not defeat it. │ ├─ ✕ THE MASTER ADDRESS LIST — the sharpest edge of the holding. Baldrige held │ address lists ARE raw census data, and municipalities could not obtain their │ OWN lists even pledging statistical use only. The single most useful thing a │ city could have for fixing its own undercount is the thing most firmly locked. │ ├─ ✕ ANY OTHER AGENCY .... § 9 bars use for any non-statistical purpose. Law │ enforcement, immigration, taxation and regulation all sit outside the door. │ └─ ✕ USE AGAINST THE RESPONDENT — the Bureau's own formulation: the information "cannot be used against you by any government agency or court." ✱ This wall is the STRONGEST confidentiality guarantee in the federal government — stronger than tax return data, stronger than medical records held by federal agencies. It is also the reason Rungs 3, 4 and 5 cost what they cost. The price of the ladder IS the price of the wall. ``` | Seat | Holder | Status | |---|---|---| | Secretary of Commerce | Howard Lutnick | Confirmed February 18, 2025; the Age Search fee notices and DAO 216-26 are Commerce-level instruments | | Director, Census Bureau | *vacant* | No Senate-confirmed Director since 2025 | | Performing the duties of the Director | George M. Cook | Since September 19, 2025; a Commerce Deputy Under Secretary | | Archivist of the United States | *[unconfirmed]* | The 72-year release is executed by the [[National Archives]]; the seat is not asserted here — see Notes | ## Notes - **The $100 / five-year ratio is the finding, and it is load-bearing.** 13 U.S.C. § 221 caps the penalty for refusing to answer at **$100**, and at **$500** for a knowingly false answer. 13 U.S.C. § 214 sets **five years** for wrongful disclosure by a custodian. The statutory fine in § 214 reads **$5,000** — a 1954 figure never amended — but 18 U.S.C. § 3571's general fine schedule supersedes it, which is why the Bureau's own published confidentiality material states the exposure as "a federal prison sentence of up to five years, a fine of up to $250,000, or both." Both figures are carried above rather than only the larger one, because the gap between the text and the practice is itself the kind of thing this vault tracks. - **The Age Search fee more than doubled in August 2026.** A Federal Register notice published **July 8, 2026** raised the Age Search fee from **$65 to $155** effective **August 7, 2026**, and the expedited surcharge from **$20 to $50** per case. The prior fee had stood since **2004**. The authority cited is **13 U.S.C. § 8(a)**, which requires the service to be self-supporting from user fees rather than appropriations — so the fee is a cost-recovery figure, not a privacy toll, and the statute gives the Bureau no power to waive it even for an indigent requester. A separate fee notice appeared **February 23, 2026**; the July notice is the operative one. This is the only rung on the ladder whose price changed in 2026, and it is the rung for a person's own record. - **"Age Search Service on Pause" is on the record but is NOT asserted here.** Searches of census.gov surface that exact string as the page *title* for numerous unrelated URLs — the FOIA age-search page, a genealogy FAQ, a library video page, several 2000/2010/2020 evaluation pages — a pattern consistent with a site-wide alert banner being indexed as the title element. Four separate fetches of those page bodies returned **no** pause text, no dates and no reason, and no Federal Register notice announcing a suspension was found. The consistent multi-URL signal is too strong to ignore and too thin to assert, so it is carried as `[unconfirmed]` inside the fence. It matters because if the service is in fact suspended, Rung 3 is currently closed and the $155 fee is moot. - **Rung 2 giving more than Rung 3 is not an anomaly; it is what the statute optimizes for.** PUMS hands any anonymous visitor individual-level records of strangers at no cost, because those records have been coarsened to the point where § 214 exposure is (in the Bureau's judgment) eliminated. Age Search hands a person one record — **their own** — for $155, because that transaction requires a human being to identify the requester, locate a specific named individual in a closed file, and take on the § 214 risk personally. The system is not pricing privacy. It is pricing **custodial risk and staff time**, and those track disclosure sensitivity only loosely. A citizen who finds this maddening has correctly identified the design. - **The FSRDC facility fee is the quietest gate in the whole system.** The Census Bureau charges nothing for its own data at a research data center. But FSRDC locations charge for the room: consortium-affiliated researchers typically pay nothing, while **unaffiliated researchers face customary fees of $15,000–$20,000 per project per year**, on the published schedule of one FSRDC. Peer agencies add their own — NCHS lists a **$3,000** minimum project fee plus **$1,800** for the SSS application. So the effective determinant of whether an American researcher can study confidential federal data is **whether their institution bought a consortium seat**. No statute establishes this. It is the residue of a cost-recovery network, and it means restricted-data access is means-tested at the university level with no policy anywhere that says so. - **The front door moved in June 2026 and the old one is gone.** ResearchDataGov.org **closed permanently on June 16, 2026**; the Standard Application Process now runs at **sap.nsf.gov**, hosted by the National Science Foundation and coordinated by the [[Interagency Council on Statistical Policy]]. The portal is a single form across the recognized statistical agencies and it **does not decide anything** — each agency applies its own criteria to applications that arrive through it. Verified from the Census Bureau's own SAP page and, independently, from the Data Foundation's account of the transition; the two agree on the URL and the June 2026 timing. Any vault page or external citation still pointing at ResearchDataGov.org is now a dead link. - **The residency requirement on Special Sworn Status deserves more attention than it gets.** To be sworn, an applicant must have been a U.S. resident for **36 of the past 60 months** and must remain resident throughout the project, on top of a background investigation and fingerprinting, with **3–4 months** of processing that begins only after the project itself is approved. That is a nationality-adjacent filter on who may examine American statistical data, imposed administratively rather than by statute, and it operates on a research population that is heavily international. - **Baldrige v. Shapiro is the wall, and the address-list holding is its sharpest edge.** 455 U.S. 345 (1982), unanimous, Burger: §§ 8(b) and 9(a) of Title 13 qualify as withholding statutes under **FOIA Exemption 3**, and they create a **statutory privilege under Rule 26(b)(1)** that relevance and necessity cannot overcome. The Court further held that **master address lists constitute raw census data**, so municipalities could not obtain even their own lists while pledging statistical use only. The practical consequence runs directly into [[Census Undercount]]: a city that believes it was undercounted cannot get the list that would let it prove where. - **The 72-year number is an accident that Congress ratified.** The interval was not chosen by weighing privacy against history. The 1870 schedules happened to be transferred to the Archives in **1942**, 72 years after the count; the **October 10, 1952** agreement between Census Director Roy V. Peel and Archivist Wayne Grover made that interval policy; and **Pub. L. 95-416 (October 5, 1978, 92 Stat. 915)** ratified the 1952 agreement in statute. So the moment an American's census record becomes fully public is set by a filing date in 1942. The 1950 schedules were released **April 1, 2022**; the 1960 schedules are due **April 1, 2032**. - **Two things deliberately left open.** (1) **The Archivist of the United States is not named.** The 72-year release is executed by the National Archives, but the current occupancy of that seat has not been verified here and is left `[unconfirmed]` rather than guessed — the map does not depend on it. (2) **No claim is made about how often § 214 has actually been enforced.** The five-year exposure is real and on the books; the number of prosecutions is not on the public record in a verifiable form, and the widely repeated claim that there have been none is not asserted here. The § 221 parenthetical inside the fence notes the absence of recent census-refusal prosecutions, which is well documented, and makes no claim about § 214. - **What the ladder does not include, and why.** There is no rung for a congressional committee, because § 9 admits no congressional exception for individual records; no rung for a court order, because Baldrige closed it; and no rung for another federal agency, because § 9 confines use to the statistical purpose for which the data was supplied. A reader looking for the "official override" rung should note its absence is the point: on this ladder there is no back stair. - **Relationship to the rest of the cluster.** [[Census Data Products Tree]] sorts the outputs by whether a statute compels their release; this map sorts the *routes to them* by what they cost. The two asymmetries are mirror images — a product can be owed to you on a date and still be unreadable at the detail you need, and a route can be open to you at no cost and still hand you nothing you asked for. [[Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products]] is what determines the resolution of everything on Rung 1 and Rung 2 before you ever see it. ## See also - [[Census]] · [[Census Data Products Tree]] · [[How the Census Is Actually Counted]] · [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] · [[Census Bureau Org Chart]] - [[Title 13]] · [[Baldrige v. Shapiro]] · [[Freedom of Information Act]] · [[Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act]] - [[Public Use Microdata Sample]] · [[Age Search Service]] · [[Standard Application Process]] · [[Special Sworn Status]] · [[Federal Statistical Research Data Centers]] - [[Differential Privacy]] · [[Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products]] · [[American Community Survey]] · [[Public Law 94-171]] - [[Census Bureau]] · [[Department of Commerce]] · [[National Archives]] · [[Federal Statistical System Tree]] · [[Interagency Council on Statistical Policy]] · [[Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act]] - [[Census Undercount]] · [[2030 Census]] · [[Census Citizenship Question]] - [[Foundations Hub]]