Risks and mitigations of releasing data Risk analysis and complexity in de-identifying and releasing data. Sara-Jayne Terp RDF Discussion
Risks and mitigations of releasing data
Risk analysis and
complexity in de-identifying
and releasing data.
Sara-Jayne Terp
RDF Discussion
First, Do No Harm
“If you make a dataset public, you
have a responsibility, to the best of your knowledge, skills, and advice, to
do no harm to the people connected to that dataset. You balance making data
available to people who can do
good with it and protecting the
data subjects, sources, and
managers.”
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RISK
“The probability of something happening multiplied by the resulting cost or benefit if it does” (Oxford English Dictionary)
Three parts:
•Cost/benefit
•Probability
•Subject (to what/whom)4
Subjects: Physical
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“Witnesses told us that
a helicopter had been
circling around the
area for hours by the
time the bakery opened
in the afternoon. It
had, perhaps, 200
people lined up to get
bread. Suddenly, the
helicopter dropped a
bomb that hit a building
on the opposite side [of
the street] from the
bakery, spraying
shrapnel and debris
over the breadline”
- FirstMileGeo report on Aleppo
Risk OF What?
• Physical harm
• Legal harm (e.g. jail, IP disputes)
• Reputational harm
• Privacy breach
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Risk to Whom?
• Data subjects (elections example)
• Data collectors (conflict example)
• Data processing team (military equipment example)
• Person releasing the data (corruption example)
• Person using the data
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PII
“Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data that could potentially identify a specific individual. Any information that can be used to distinguish one person from another and can be used for de-anonymizing anonymous data can be considered PII.”
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Learn to spot Red Flags
• Names, addresses, phone numbers
• Locations: lat/long, GIS traces, locality (e.g. home + work as an identifier)
• Members of small populations
• Untranslated text
• Codes (e.g. “41”)
• Slang terms
• Can be combined with other datasets to produce PII
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Consider Partial Release
Release to only some groups
• Academics
• People in your organisation
• Data subjects
Release at lower granularity
• Town/district level, not street
• Subset or sample of data ‘rows’
• Subset of data ‘columns’
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Include locals
Locals can spot:
•Local languages
•Local slang
•Innocent-looking phrases
Locals might also choose the risk
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