Comment on Sainsbury’s boss defends decision to sell customers’ Nectar card data

• mannycalavera@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You absolutely can anonymise data.

  However it’s also true that of you don’t do it correctly users can be identified. Sounds like Netflix didn’t do it properly. I don’t know, do you have a link I could look at?

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  • Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    anonymising data is a treadmill problem

    what might work now won't hold up to the de-anonymising techniques of a few years from now

    so no, you can't really

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    • mannycalavera@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Create anonymous UUID, store interactions against this in a separate table, ensure PII is removed prior to storing. So instead of Max Reboo has purchased a subscription to jugs and hooters it’s user 12345678901234576 has purchased jugs and hooters. How can a future treadmill de-anonymise this? For sure if the storage is done badly then you can track back to a particular user.

      Also, once again, can you link to the netflix issue you quoted above please. Thanks.

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      • Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Create anonymous UUID, store interactions against this in a separate table, ensure PII is removed prior to storing

        which is more or less exactly what netflix did -> the whole thing's not that hard to find on google

        but you need something to distinguish users at least a bit or the data's equivalent to sales figures

        you combine that "not-quite-pii" with other independent data sources that have similar "not-quite-pii" and build a complete picture

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