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Link to NASS HomeNASS Confidentiality Pledge

Our Guarantee for Safeguarding
Your Privacy

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1.

Names, addresses, and personal identifiers are never revealed.

After data collection, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) aggregates the data from the questionnaires independent of names and addresses. The original questionnaires are kept in a secure area, then destroyed as prescribed by law.

Names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, and employer identification numbers are used only by NASS employees for official business. This information is never released to anyone outside the agency without written permission from the individual.
2.

NASS survey and census data never leave NASS control.

Data security and confidentiality are top priorities. Reported data collected for the NASS annual statistics program and the 5-year census of agriculture are strictly protected by NASS. No one other than specific NASS employees directly involved in providing market-sensitive estimates has access to survey data before public release of official USDA statistics. The market-sensitive reports are prepared under secure lock-up conditions and are released at preannounced dates and times.
3.

Only authorized persons working for NASS as employees or sworn partners, who are subject to fines and imprisonment for unauthorized disclosure, can access NASS data and only for approved statistical purposes.

All the information that NASS collects about individual farming operations is confidential by law. Every person working for or in cooperation with NASS – from the Agency Administrator to the person collecting the information – signs a confidentiality from which states that no reported survey information will be compromised. This includes sworn partners who are approved and supervised by NASS to provide statistical research. Any offender is subject to a jail term (5 years), a fine ($250,000), or both.
4.

When NASS collects data in a NASS approved statistical study, farmers and ranchers are informed about any cooperating sponsor and participation will always be voluntary.

When NASS agrees to collect data in cooperation with selected organizations, such as a university or other government agency, NASS will clearly communicate the name of the sponsoring organization and the purpose of the survey. If the needs of the agricultural community will not be served by the survey, the survey will not be conducted by NASS. NASS will never conduct a survey for private, proprietary purposes.

Data analyzed by a sponsoring organization have had all personal identifiers, such as name, address, telephone number, etc., removed. Results of the study are always released to everyone free of charge. No organization is given ownership of data, or an advantage over anyone else.

5.

Summary data from all NASS surveys and censuses are available to everyone, but will never disclose individual reported information.

NASS releases published data to everyone at the same time. Most reports are available on the Internet within minutes of the scheduled release.

Participants in a NASS survey can rest assured that no individual data will ever be published without permission in a way that would identify the operation. For instance, if only one farm produced rice in a particular county, then NASS will protect the privacy of that individual farm by not publishing rice data for that county. Instead, the data would be combined with reports from other counties in the State and published only at the aggregate level.