Big data collection makes it hard for you to remain anonymous

How anonymous is “anonymous” in today’s digital world?

Not the hacktivist collective – this is about how anonymous average people are when the data they generate is vacuumed up by everybody from marketers to websites, law enforcement, researchers, government and more.

Is Big Data collection, even with personally identifiable information (PII) stripped out or encrypted, still vulnerable to “re-identification” techniques that pinpoint individuals to the point that intrusive surveillance is possible, or already going on?

Or can “de-identification” leave individuals comfortably faceless in an ocean of data that is just being used to spot trends, track the spread of disease, specify high-crime areas or other things that will improve the economic well being or health of a population?

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