UK: anonymisation in the modern era: the UKAN’s perspective
(with Nigel Shadbolt, Mark Elliot, Kieron O’Hara, Jeni Tennison, Caroline Tudor, Keith Spicer, Elaine Mackey), Data Protection Law & Privacy
Abstract
Anonymisation has become an important tool to maximise the utility of personal data while complying with data protection laws, converting datasets into a form where they can be shared by reducing their information content so that data subjects cease to be easily identifiable. Well-publicised re-identification attacks on supposedly anonymised data and new theories of jigsaw identification have eroded faith in anonymisation’s efficacy. The UK Anonymisation Network (UKAN), discuss the realities and risks of anonymisation, and offer their pragmatic views on how the nexus between re-identification and anonymisation could be managed.
