Strategies for Preserving Owner Privacy in the National Information Management System of the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis Unit

The Food Security Act of 1985 prohibits the disclosure of any information collected by the USDA Forest Service's FIA program that would link individual landowners to inventory plot information. To address this, we developed a technique based on a "swapping" procedure in which plots with similar characteristics are exchanged, and on a "fuzzing" procedure in which the geographic locations of the plots are randomly perturbed by 805 m. A simulation experiment was performed to assess the effects of fuzzing and swapping. Our results indicate the procedures can provide meaningful information and comply with the law. Further refinements of the technique are ongoing.