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the_sleaze_yesterday at 5:03 PM1 replyview on HN

It's really not unless of course you are dis-incentivized to provide anonymous data. The ground is thick with prior art and existing solutions.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/d...


Replies

wtallisyesterday at 5:33 PM

Well, there are pitfalls, and it's easy for an "anonymization" scheme to leak more detail than it would seem at first glance. But I agree that motive plays a big role. If your purpose in sharing data is to make money off it, then you'll be trying to share as much data as possible, and will try to convince yourself that your anonymization is "good enough".

If you're sharing data for a specific purpose, then it's much easier to limit the data sharing to suit that purpose: omit irrelevant data, aggregate where possible, and anonymize individual data points only when you actually need to share that level of detail.