#FF00AA

Companies continue to store and sometimes release vast databases of “anonymized” information about users. But, as Netflix, AOL, and the State of Massachusetts have learned, “anonymized” data can often be cracked in surprising ways, revealing the hidden secrets each of us are assembling in online “databases of ruin.“[…]

But it was only an early mile marker in Sweeney’s career; in 2000, she showed that 87 percent of all Americans could be uniquely identified using only three bits of information: ZIP code, birthdate, and sex. […] As increasing amounts of information on all of us are collected and disseminated online, scrubbing data just isn’t enough to keep our individual “databases of ruin” out of the hands of the police, political enemies, nosy neighbors, friends, and spies.

Emphasis mine on the creepy bit. I’m not a privacy nut by any means, but it does make you wonder if you shouldn’t start systematically lying about your birth date whenever you register on a website that isn’t expected to correlate the data with your social security number.

Bear in mind though that the birth date thing only applies to massive-scale automated processes; whatever you do, you can be identified and tracked by someone who really wants to. Like I said, I’m not a privacy nut, but the main reason why I don’t care is that I don’t anticipate to ever look for a 9-to-5 job, and that doesn’t apply to most people.