The risk of "re-identification" of anonymised court decisions is minimal
The research team describes the initial results as "encouraging". This is because it shows that a lot of effort has to be put into programming a de-anonymisation tool for court decisions.
In the NRP 77 research project, Prof Andreas Lienhard and Daniel Kettiger deal with the tension between transparency and privacy in court decisions. Research to date shows that currently anonymised persons in court decisions can only be re-identified with great effort. "Up to now the research work in Computer Science showed, that it is not possible to build a general de-anonymizationtool with reasonable financial means. This is very encouraging, because it reveals that the general risk of de- anonymization seems to be low," the two researchers write in their latest report for "The Court Administrator", an international magazine for court administrators. The research will continue until the end of 2024.