Re:Debunking the Myth of "Anonymous" Data
by willseth on Sunday November 12, 2023 @10:19AM
(#38240850)
I designed our anonymization systems. You clearly have a misunderstanding of the threat model and the treatment methods.
Of course I have a misunderstanding. You only shared some very vague statements. Could you share some insight on your threat model and your envisioned use case?
TFA is obviously referring to the general case where you can't really put arbitrary restrictions to the adversary.
> However, in practice, any attempt at de-identification requires removal not only of your identifiable information, but also of information that can identify you when considered in combination with other information known about you.
So, anonymization may be well intended and sophisticated, but is only effective as long as you control and anonymize all the data available to your adversary. Which you obviously cannot. The best you can achieve with anonymized data is to allow non-malicious users to run some analysis on your data in a controlled environment without exposing them to information they should not see. If that's your employer's business model, well, there may be a market niche for that.