Pseudonymization

Definition:

The process of converting Personal Data into a form whereby it can no longer be attributed to a specific individual, without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organizational measures to ensure that the Personal Data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person.

Commentary:

Pseudonymisation does not remove all identifying information from the data, but merely reduces the likability of a dataset with the original identity of an individual. Pseudonymisation can generally be achieved by removing the association between an identifying data set and identities by obfuscating identifiers with reversible pseudonyms, typically via a cryptographic method, so that the data can be shared in de-identified form with one population of users while access to the real data can be maintained in a controlled manner for a restricted set of authorized users. By design, pseudonymization can be reversible and thus the data is likely to remain in the scope of data protection and/or privacy regulations.