[MyData & Open Data] Fwd: De-identification

Tue Aug 5 10:38:15 UTC 2014

Hi,
In a recent post
<http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2014/07/24/de-identification-a-critical-debate/>,
researchers Khaled El Emam and Luk Arbuckle critiqued Arvind Narayanan and
Edward Felten's rebuttal piece (to Ann Cavoukian and Dan Castro's paper) on
de-identification, and the claims being made, risks etc.

Authors make atleast one valid point which I think both camps will be
hard-pressed to disagree with:

*We have a knowledge dissemination problem rather than a knowledge problem
– i.e., sound techniques are known and available, but not often enough
used. We should be putting our energy into translating best practices
within the analytics community.*

Sally

On 10 July 2014 13:58, Reuben Binns <r at reubenbinns.com> wrote:

> Also worth reading is Narayanan's follow up which very usefully breaks
> down the various arguments for de-identification, classifying them from
> 'good' to 'reasonable' to 'bad'.
>
> http://33bits.org/2014/07/09/good-and-bad-reasons-for-anonymizing-data
>
> Something that struck me while reading this is that de-identification is a
> like a cheap padlock on a dataset. It can usually be broken easily, and
> breaking it will just get easier over time as it gets rusty and
> lockpicker's tools get better. But crappy padlocks are sometimes still
> useful - they serve a legal and symbolic function. They may be easily
> broken but they put up enough of a barrier to keep honest people honest. Of
> course, this often isn't enough, but serves a purpose in certain contexts.
>
>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 15:08:45 +0200
>> From: Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>
>> To: mydata-open-data <mydata-open-data at lists.okfn.org>
>> Subject: [MyData & Open Data] Fwd: De-identification
>> Message-ID: <9D6AA824-323E-4DBD-B467-95072E658A0D at openrightsgroup.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>>
>> From the UK anon list
>>
>>
>> > And now, a rebuttal from Narayanan/Felten
>> >
>> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/no-silver-bullet-de-identification-still-doesnt-work/
>> >
>> >>
>> >>> Ontario privacy commissioner Cavoukian & ITIF analyst Castro have
>> >>> published a new white paper:
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> http://www.privacybydesign.ca/index.php/paper/big-data-innovation-setting-record-straight-de-identification-work/
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>>
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 14:24:53 +0100
>> From: Sally Deffor <sally.deffor at okfn.org>
>> To: Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>
>> Cc: mydata-open-data <mydata-open-data at lists.okfn.org>
>> Subject: Re: [MyData & Open Data] Fwd: De-identification
>> Message-ID:
>>         <CAAc9EgKj7JJ=wFOCKOF+b4pjmMrPb7=
>> bLadeWRmhM1wG1hT7nQ at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>>
>> Thanks for sharing Javier! Once again, convincing arguments made :-)
>>
>>
>> On 9 July 2014 14:08, Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org> wrote:
>>
>> > From the UK anon list
>> >
>> >
>> > > And now, a rebuttal from Narayanan/Felten
>> > >
>> >
>> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/no-silver-bullet-de-identification-still-doesnt-work/
>> > >
>> > >>
>> > >>> Ontario privacy commissioner Cavoukian & ITIF analyst Castro have
>> > >>> published a new white paper:
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> >
>> http://www.privacybydesign.ca/index.php/paper/big-data-innovation-setting-record-straight-de-identification-work/
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>> *Sally DefforOpen Data & Privacy Project Coordinator | skype:deffor.selase
>> | @SDeffor | +44 (0)7774 734206 The **Open Knowledge Foundation*
>> <http://okfn.org/>
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*Sally DefforOpen Data & Privacy Project Coordinator | skype:deffor.selase
| @SDeffor | +44 (0)7774 734206 The **Open Knowledge Foundation*
<http://okfn.org/>

*Empowering through Open Knowledge**http://www.okfn.org*
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