“While there might be a lot of people who are in their thirties, male, and living in New York City, far fewer of them were also born on Jan. 5, are driving a red sports car, and live with two kids (both girls) and one dog.”
That’s the conclusion from a study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal Nature Communications. Data collected by technology companies is typically “anonymized,” so it can be used by marketers and advertisers — “99.98%” of people were correctly identified in anonymized datasets using 15 characteristics, including age, gender and marital status.
Consumer advocates are increasingly concerned about how large datasets could be used by hackers in light of several recent data breaches. In 2017, Equifax EFX, +1.92% revealed that hackers accessed the personal information of up to 147 million people; this week, the credit bureau announced a settlement, setting aside $700 million to provide cash payments for people who were affected.
Consumer advocates are increasingly concerned about how large datasets could be used by hackers in light of several recent data breaches. Luc Rocher, a research fellow at Université Catholique de Louvain or UCLovain in Brussels and co-author of the latest study, wrote, “While there might be a lot of people who are in their thirties, male, and living in New York City, far fewer of them were also born on Jan. 5, are driving a red sports car, and live with two kids and one dog.
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