The Privacy Act establishes a code of fair information practices that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies. The Privacy Act: 

• Allows individuals to request access to their own personal records.
• Allows individuals to seek correction or amendment of federally maintained records that are inaccurate, incomplete, untimely.
• Prohibits the disclosure of a record about an individual from a system of records without the written consent of the individual. 

A Privacy Act request allows individuals to gain access to their own personal records (unless the requested records are exempted from disclosure), and to seek correction or amendment of federally maintained records that are inaccurate, incomplete or untimely. Privacy Act requests made to the Census Bureau allows individuals to gain access to records about "themselves" that are filed "in a system of records" that can only be retrieved by your name and at least one other personal identifier (Name, DOB, SSN, etc.).

*NOTE: The Privacy Act does not include your personal ancestry census records and that those cannot be changed.