New publication on “Anonymization and Risk”

Two great U.S. privacy academics, Ira Rubinstein and Woodrow Hartzog, have released last week their article on anonymization and risk. They articulate the view that perfect anonymization of data sets has failed and that although the process of protecting individuals in shared information remains integral to privacy practice and policy, there is no clear direction for policy. Data protection laws are focused on whether an individual can be “identified” within a given set (since they regulate personal information which is defined as information about an “identifiable individual”). The authors argue that the better locus of data release policy is on the process of minimizing the risk of reidentification and sensitive attribute disclosure. They are of the view that by focusing on process, data release policy can better balance privacy and utility where nearly all data exchanges carry some risk.

• Paul Ohm, Broken Promises of Privacy : Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization (August 13, 2009). UCLA Law Review, Vol. 57, p. 1707, 2010 ; U of Colorado Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 9-12.

• Paul Ohm, Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Colorado Law School, article on “Sensitive Information”.

• Boštjan Bercic & Carlisle George, “Identifying Personal Data Using Relational Database Design Principles” (2009) 17:3 International Journal of Law and Information Technology 233.

• Lundevall-Unger and Tranvik, “IP Addresses: Just a Number?” (2011) 19:1 International Journal of Law and Information Technology 53.

• Paul Schwartz & Daniel Solove, “The PII Problem: Privacy and a New Concept of Personally Identifiable Information” (2011) 86 N.Y.U. Law Review 1814.

• Eloïse Gratton, “If Personal Information is Privacy’s Gatekeeper, then Risk of Harm is the Key: A proposed method for determining what counts as personal information”, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2013.

This content has been updated on September 1, 2015 at 21 h 06 min.