Balancing Open Data and Privacy Protections

Evinact was engaged by a large state government department after it was identified during a routine risk audit process that certain open datasets revealed privacy risks, meaning thousands of personal records were at risk of being identified. The department immediately remedied the affected open datasets to reduce the possibility of further risks.

Understanding the importance of data privacy, security and ethics to business operations and performance, the department turned to Evinact for assistance. We were engaged to provide assurance that the department’s privacy risk remediation efforts had been effective and mitigated any future privacy risks.

We engaged with department stakeholders to conduct an independent review of the existing risk assessment and the department’s remediation response. Using the same method as the auditor, Evinact determined whether or not an individual could be re-identified by combining information across attributes combined with adversarial knowledge. We conducted the risk assessment based on the existence of unique records identifiable in datasets and the level of privacy risk posed and collated our findings to deliver the department with a robust and proven framework for improving open data privacy.

In doing this, we were able to identify any new privacy risks in the datasets that had surfaced as a result of the remediation efforts and provide recommendations for future practices regarding the department’s privacy-preserving practices in relation to open data publication.

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This engagement was originally completed as GWI.