The Importance of Data Anonymization: Protecting Personal and Sensitive Information

Personally identifiable information, or PII, is information that can be used by itself or with other data to track down a person's identity. Data anonymization is the process of protecting people's private or sensitive data by eliminating that kind of information. Typically, data anonymization involves blanking, hashing, or masking personal information, often by using fixed-length codes to represent data columns or hiding data with altered values.

Imagine a world where we all had access to each other’s addresses, account numbers, and other identifiable information. That would invade a lot of people’s privacy and make the world less safe. Data anonymization is one of the ways we can keep data private and secure!

Organizations have a responsibility to protect their data and the personal information that data might contain.

What types of data should be anonymized?

Healthcare and financial data are two of the most sensitive types of data. These industries rely a lot on data anonymization techniques. After all, the stakes are very high. That’s why data in these two industries usually goes through de-identification, which is a process used to wipe data clean of all personally identifying information.

Data anonymization is used in just about every industry. That is why it is so important for data analysts to understand the basics. Here is a list of data that is often anonymized:

• Telephone numbers
• Names
• License plates and license numbers
• Social security numbers
• IP addresses
• Medical records
• Email addresses
• Photographs
• Account numbers

To Learn more about Data Ethics and Privacy, Enroll to the Course 3 of 8 in the Google Data Analytics Specialization

All the best!!