Quote:
Originally Posted by Dephormation
Phorm have not published the algorithm or method they use. Indeed there was no reference to the anonymisation process AT ALL in the leaked 2006 report.
They have made oblique statements which claim names, and identifiers will be filtered out, but this is obviously unlikely to be successful unless you know the names of everyone on the planet, your filter is multilingual, and you know the format of all identifiers in use on the planet.
Look at this page, put yourself in Phorm's shoes, and ask yourself how you will remove all identifiers from this page? roadrunner69, dephormation, NTLvictim... are those names? Are they personal identifiers?
Phorm claim they will not process form data, but that assumes the form data is a post request, and seems not to include search engine forms. In other words, they will process form data if it is commercially attractive for them to do so.
Clearly, after a moments thought you'll agree, its complete nonsense to claim they can fully anonymise data.
Yet ICO did not ask BT how this algorithm worked, nor inspect its operation.
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Something i just noticed a lot of things advertisers might be interested in could also be personally identifiable information.
Examples
Mercedes (A car but also possibly someones first name)
Carr (possibly being taken for car)
Villa ( is a another good example)
Look through a phone book or surnames and try to decide which ones could also have another meaning to advertiser.
How in these cases will they know the context enough to decide it is personally identifing or not ?