In our blog we provide you with industry insights on privacy, anonymization, analytics and of course information about our solution Aircloak Insights.
November 21, 2019
In the field of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (or PrivTech), one truth is becoming increasingly apparent: there is no silver bullet in privacy approaches. Each data use case has to be considered separately. Typical requirements we discuss with customers are What analytical quality is needed? Is time to market for each use case a factor? What privacy protection is needed or … read more
September 23, 2019
“’Anonymized’ Data Can Be Anything But’” – Forbes, July 24, 2019 When the world media reported the results of a recent scientific paper on the ineffectiveness of data anonymization, it was anything but news. Already in 1981 the US computer scientist, Dorothy E. Denning, stated in one of her scientific papers on database security that when working with data it … read more
May 10, 2019
When dealing with data anonymization, one inevitably encounters differential privacy. Many privacy researchers regard it as the “gold standard” of anonymization. Well-known tech companies such as Apple or Google are using it for certain data analyses and market it to raise public awareness underlining their focus on data protection. But what exactly stands behind this approach, and why does it … read more
January 14, 2019
Which company would not like to get significantly improved insights into the market with detailed data and thus optimize its products and services? In most cases, the corresponding data is already available, but its use is often restricted for data protection reasons. Anonymization is used when you want to use a data set with sensitive information for analysis without compromising … read more
September 28, 2017
If you are a privacy professional interested in anonymity, then you’ve probably followed the Wired article “How One of Apple’s Key Privacy Safeguards Falls Short”. It’s the story of how some researchers reverse-engineered Apple’s proprietary implementation of differential privacy and found that the setting of the privacy loss parameter is not in the safe region. … read more
August 17, 2017
In the last year or so Apple, Google and Uber all announced that they too are using Differential Privacy. Given recent publicity around differential privacy, we may soon see differential privacy incorporated as part of commercial data masking or data anonymization solutions. But what does it really mean being Differentially Private — and what are the questions you should ask? … read more
August 8, 2017
Many analyses require results only about aggregate data, not individual personal data. Such analyses can in principle be done over anonymized data. If user data is strongly anonymized in the GDPR sense, then it is by law and in fact not personal data. Personal data management systems should therefore exploit the benefits of anonymization whenever and wherever possible. … read more