Your location info is too revealing: data boffins

  • 22 September 2014
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By Richard Chirgwin, 22 Sep 2014
 
A group of researchers partly supported by SAP has taken a look at one of the big problems with so-called “anonymised” data: the way spatial correlations in mobile data can be used to re-identify individuals in large data sets.
Location data is the big problem, the Singapore-led group says: even if the resolution of a phone's GPS records is reduced in a stored dataset, following a user's track (trajectory in the paper) for long enough will easily identify that user.
 “Removing identifiers from location information, or reducing the granularity of the location or time, does not prevent disclosure of personally identifiable information,” the paper states. “Individuals are highly re-identifiable with only a few spatio-temporal points”.
 
The Register/ full article here/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/22/your_location_info_is_too_revealing_data_boffins/

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