Link to the actual article: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/05/10/1508081113.full
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy
When setting policy, it is better to have theoretical mathematical results rather than empirical effectiveness, since you can bet the technological frontier of privacy violation is a moving one. As with cryptography, you want solid foundations in unbreakable maths -- not 'we can't break this cipher with what we know today'. Probably, someone can.