Evidence Based Anonymization

Abstract

Anonymized Data are defined so that no individual shall be identified. This unidentifiability, however, is not clearly defined. Hence the assessment process of this unidentifiability has not been clearly formulated, which results in few consistent arguments on the improvement of the process. Therefore the present paper substantiates one clear method to decide whether given data are identifiable or not by measuring re-identification risk. The existing theory of re-identification risk lacks the method of deciding its critical value; the present paper statistically estimates it using a fact that identification has not been observed. Our evidence based method, supported by facts, ensures lasting improvements on the institution of Anonymized Data. The present paper actually proposes concrete improvements on its assessment process.