What is meant by Anonymization?
The term "anonymization" refers to the process of altering personal data so that the individual cannot be identified. This is crucial for protecting privacy and complying with data protection laws such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Anonymization ensures that data can be used for analysis and research purposes without being traceable back to individuals.
Typical software functions in the area of "anonymization":
- Data Masking: Replacing sensitive information with placeholders or non-identifiable values to protect the identity of individuals.
- Pseudonymization: Replacing identifiers with pseudonyms so that data cannot be linked to a specific person without additional information.
- Aggregation: Summarizing data at a higher level to obscure individual information and protect privacy.
- Data Substitution: Replacing actual data with synthetic or fictional data that does not represent real people.
- Random Sampling: Selecting random subsets of data for analysis without accessing individual data points.
- Access Control: Restricting access to anonymized data only to authorized users to prevent misuse.
- Data Encryption: Protecting data through encryption to ensure that anonymized data cannot be restored or misused.
- Audit Logs: Creating logs of anonymization-related activities to ensure traceability and compliance with anonymization policies.