Anonimisation, Impacts and Challenges into Big Data: A Case Studies

In a context in which privacy is increasingly demanded by citizens and by various institutions, reflected in protection laws, anonymity emerges as an essential tool. Both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD) provide a softer regulation for anonymised data, compared to personal data. Despite the legal advantages in their use, anonymisation tools have limits that should be considered, especially when it comes to massive data contexts. The work seeks to analyze whether anonymisation techniques can satisfactorily ensure privacy in big data environments, without taking other measures in favor of privacy. Based on two hypothetical cases, we realized that the anonymisation techniques, although well implemented, must be associated with governance techniques to avoid latent breaches of privacy. Besides that, we point out some guidelines identified in the case studies for the use of anonymous data in Big Data.