In the wake of high-profile cases raising questions about how effective the process of anonymizing customer data is, a report from Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian and the University of Ottawa's Khaled El Emam has found that "de-identification is an important means to safeguard privacy," ReadWriteWeb reports. "Not only does de-identification protect individual privacy, it also enables the valuable use of information for authorized secondary purposes, such as health research, which benefits not only individuals but society as a whole," Cavoukian said. The study found that while 100-percent anonymization could not be guaranteed, re-identification is not easily accomplished. Editor's note: IAPP members, watch for more about Khaled El Emam's work on de-identification in the next edition of The Privacy Advisor, which comes out on June 28.
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