Anonymize
Also called: pseudonymizing or whitening
Anonymization involves processing data in such a way that it can no longer be linked to a person or organization. Anonymizing data is often done to protect privacy.
By anonymizing collected data on, for example, website usage or products ordered, this data can still be analyzed without the information being traceable to individual data subjects.
When to anonymize
A legal need to anonymize data may arise from legislation. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation(AVG) is an illustration of this. It describes the conditions under which companies and institutions may collect, process and store personal data. If a company wants to keep certain data longer or use it for other purposes (such as strategic analysis), in principle this is only possible if the information is stripped of identifiable personal data.
The purpose of anonymizing is not limited to unnecessary storage and viewing of personal data within the organization. Anonymizing data as much as possible also prevents the impact of any data breach.
Anonymizing and pseudonymizing
Both the terms anonymize and pseudonymize are used for editing personal data to non-reducible data. The difference between anonymizing and pseudonymizing is in the irreversibility.
With pseudonymization, the retained data are still present in their original form, albeit under a pseudonym or at least without linked personal data. The right combination of anonymous data could still be classified as a collection of personal data. With anonymization, personal data are not only erased or hashed, but also merged in such a way that individual profiles no longer exist.
A good way to determine whether data is sufficiently anonymized is to ask whether data would be traceable to individuals if the processed result became public.
