💠What, Why, and How of Anonymized Data | XS’ Issue #34
Anonymized Data : A Starter Guide Explained in 2 Minutes
Anonymized data is defined as data that has been modified to remove personal identifiers. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as pseudonymization or aggregation.
When anonymizing data, it is important to consider the balance between privacy and utility. Striking the right balance will ensure that individuals’ privacy is protected while still allowing businesses to gain valuable insights from the data.
How to Anonymize Data
Anonymization can be done in a variety of ways, depending on the type of data and the desired level of anonymity. Some common anonymization techniques include
pseudonymization (replacing identifying information with fake names or IDs),
aggregation (grouping data together)
suppression (removing details entirely)
How Is Anonymized Data Used
Anonymized data is often used for research purposes, as it can provide insights into trends and patterns without revealing sensitive information about individuals.
Anonymized data can also be used for marketing or other business purposes to help businesses make better decisions.
Can Anonymized Data Be Identified
Even though anonymized data cannot be traced back to an individual, it is often possible to re-identify individuals from anonymized data sets. This is because there is usually other information included in the data set that can be used to identify individuals.
For example, a data set might include information about people's age, gender, and location. Even if names and other personal details are not included, it might still be possible to identify an individual based on this information.
The Bottom Line: Is Anonymous Data Really Anonymous?
Anonymized data is not always truly anonymous. In some cases, it may be possible to re-identify individuals based on their anonymized data. For example, if someone’s anonymized data include their age, gender, and zip code, it may be possible to identify them using public records.
There are also cases where anonymized data may be unintentionally leaked. For example, if a dataset contains multiple variables that can uniquely identify an individual (such as their date of birth, social security number, and mother’s maiden name), it may be possible to re-identify individuals even if the dataset does not contain any personally identifiable information.
Rounding Up the Stack
Each week, we try to read, listen to, and watch tens of blog posts (if not more than a hundred), guides, podcasts, videos, webinars, and any means of content to deliver you the best content from the last week.
These are the content from last week that we enjoyed reading and caught our attention:
Blog Posts
4 Ways MACH Makes Your Organization Ready for Change
Here are four ways how adopting a MACH mindset introduces process reforms and gets your organization ready to adapt and change:
4 Ways MACH Makes Your Organization Ready for Change — www.applydigital.com
Why Content Teams Must Integrate Content Models and Design Systems
In this blog, you will dive into why content teams need to consider a new approach that introduces content modeling and design systems:
Why Content Teams Must Integrate Content Models and Design Systems — www.contentful.com
From Content Analytics to Business Metrics
Learn how to position content in a way that resonates with the organization that funded it, and the users who consume it, by focusing measurements on customer journeys and top user tasks:
From Content Analytics to Business Metrics — www.boye-co.com
4 Questions Data Security Experts Ask Before Moving Data
To stay on top of data security, here are four key questions to consider before you move data:
4 Questions Data Security Experts Ask Before Moving Data — airbyte.com
Why Marketers Should Explore These 4 Emerging Technology Trends
Marketers should explore four emerging tech trends and how they impact customer data management and consumer privacy:
Why Marketers Should Explore These 4 Emerging Technology Trends — www.cmswire.com
Podcast Episodes
Building Equity and Inclusion with Data - Data Unlocked
In this week’s episode of Data Unlocked, Jason sits down with Alix Guerrier, the CEO of DonorsChoose to discuss the importance of data-driven equity, how DonorsChoose works, measuring equity, and more:
Videos and Webinars
9 Tips Essential For Choosing an E-commerce Storefront - Going Headless with John
Guides, Case Studies, and Reports
Monolithic or Microservices? The Question You Shouldn’t Really Ask Yourself
Monolithic software architecture has been here for a while, while microservices represent a fairly modern approach to app-building, used by worldwide giants such as Twitter, Uber, Spotify, or Netflix, so it seems it’s here to stay:
Monolithic or Microservices? The Question You Shouldn’t Really Ask Yourself — naturaily.com
Upcoming Events and Webinars
Let's Learn Auth0 Actions
Will Johnson will teach us how to use serverless and a drag-and-drop interface to build custom identity flows.
Thursday, September 8 @ 6:30 pm GMT+2
Let's Learn Auth0 Actions! — www.learnwithjason.dev
-
That’s it from our side.
Hope you’ll enjoy the content presented above.
Please let us know if you have any questions, comments, or feedback. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us by replying to one of the emails or emailing directly to me via esat@experiencestack.co
And, if you think your friends or colleagues might enjoy reading this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them 🤗
Till next time 😉