Getting lost in the crowd: The limits of privacy in location data
If the dataset was big enough, would individual records become anonymous by being “lost in the crowd”? Researchers discuss how there are limits to privacy in location datasets.
anonymity
Canada Admits COVID-19 Contact Tracing App Does Not Guarantee 100% Anonymity
Canada’s privacy regulator is admitting the government’s contract tracing app can’t provide a 100% guarantee of anonymity. “True anonymity, technically […]
Google’s federated analytics method could analyze end user data without invading privacy
Google’s federated analytics techniques, which power features like Now Playing, could be used to analyze end user data without invading […]
Will Google’s and Apple’s COVID Tracking Plan Protect Privacy?
Last week, Google and Apple announced that they were working together to develop privacy-protecting technology that could enable COVID-19 contact-tracing […]
UK government using confidential patient data in coronavirus response
Technology firms are processing large volumes of confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation that is part of the […]
Firm Tracking Purchase, Transaction Histories of Millions Maybe Not Really Anonymizing Them
The nation’s largest financial data broker, Yodlee, holds extensive and supposedly anonymized banking and credit card transaction histories on millions […]
German Federal Supervisory Authority Launches Public Consultation on Anonymization
On February 10, 2020, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) launched its first public consultation procedure. […]
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. […]
Even Privacy-Focused Cryptocurrency Can Spill Your Secrets
From a Harry Potter-themed protocol to high-profile coins, cryptocurrency is often not quite as private as it seems. Privacy coins […]
Inherently identifiable: Is it possible to anonymize health and genetic data?
Nearly 25 million people have taken an at-home DNA testing kit and shared that data with one of four ancestry […]
Spanish Supervisory Authority and EDPS release guidance on hashing for data pseudonymization and anonymization purposes
On November 4, 2019, the Spanish Supervisory Authority (“AEPD”), in collaboration with the European Data Protection Supervisor, published guidance on the […]
Anonymisation does not work for big data
Recently, well-publicised research by data scientists at Imperial College in London and Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium as well […]