In April, the EU's Article 29 Working Party (Working Party)
adopted an opinion on Anonymisation Techniques (Opinion).
The Opinion is designed to provide guidance for organisations on
the use of common anonymisation techniques, and the risks that can
be presented by them.
When data is truly anonymised – so that the original data
subject cannot be identified – it falls outside of EU data
protection law. The Opinion notes that the re-use of data can be
beneficial, providing "clear benefits for society, individuals
and organisations". However, achieving true anonymisation is
not easy, and can diminish the usefulness of the data in some
circumstances.
The EU regime does not prescribe any particular technique that
should be used to anonymise personal data. To guide organisations
in designing their own policy on anonymisation, the Opinion
examines the two principle forms: (a) randomization and (b)
generalization.
