The risk with anonymizing data is that it can often be re-identified – where anonymized data is matched with available information to discover the individual to whom it belongs. Canada’s federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“ PIPEDA”), applies the same concept regarding personal information.Īnonymization, or de-identification, refers to a process that removes information capable of identifying individuals or their households from collected data. Personal information is defined as “information about an identifiable individual” and it is generally thought to include primary identifiers such as one’s name, age, address, fingerprints, ethnic origin, and marital status. For example, British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (“ PIPA”) provides protection for information which falls within the definition of “personal information”. The restrictions on the collection, use, and disclosure of data in privacy laws across the globe are triggered when data can be used to identify a specific person. If a business anonymizes and simply aggregates collected data into a group of unidentified data points, how can it be at risk? In this bulletin, we will touch on the risks and considerations that a business should focus on when using such data in its operations. However, simply using anonymized and/or aggregated data does not insulate a business from the risk of privacy violations, it may instead just give a business a false sense of security with respect to that risk. Relatedly, companies will often seek to anonymize the data they collect in order to try to avoid the application of privacy requirements. Many businesses, for example, use technology to aggregate data for a number of reasons including making their marketing and product development processes more efficient and effective. As a result, businesses are seeking alternative ways to use data in a way that, they hope, will allow them to continue to reap the benefits of using such data while also staying on the right side of all applicable privacy requirements. How that data is used is facing greater scrutiny, in particular when that data can identify specific individuals. Municipal, Land Use Planning & Developmentĭata drives many business decisions in today’s digital economy.International Arbitration & Cross-Border Litigation.White Collar Defence, Fraud & Investigations. Structured Finance, Derivatives & Securitization.Competition, Antitrust & Foreign Investment.
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