Researchers Find ‘Anonymized’ Data Is Even Less Anonymous Than We Thought

Corporations love to pretend that ‘anonymization’ of the data they collect protects consumers. Studies keep showing that’s not really true.

When it was revealed that Avast is using its popular antivirus software to collect and sell user data, Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek first downplayed the scandal, assuring the public the collected data had been “anonymized”—or stripped of any obvious identifiers like names or phone numbers.

But analysis from students at Harvard University shows that anonymization isn’t the magic bullet companies like to pretend it is. Previous studies have shown that even within independent individual anonymized datasets, identifying users isn’t all that difficult. But when data from different leaks are combined, identifying actual users isn’t all that difficult.

Source: Researchers Find ‘Anonymized’ Data Is Even Less Anonymous Than We Thought – VICE