Glossary

Identifier: attribute that unambiguously characterizes a person in a dataset. Examples of identifiers include social security numbers, passport numbers and first and last names.

Re-identification: process that makes it possible to associate information of interest with a person's name, or with any information that can be easily linked to that name (e.g. home address, photo, etc.).

Quasi-identifier: attribute that characterizes a person in a dataset with a certain degree of ambiguity, but which can, by combination, unambiguously characterize that person. Examples include address, gender and age. In practice, quasi-identifiers are used to create links between different datasets.

Confidential attribute: attribute containing sensitive information about the person concerned. For example, salary, religious affiliation,...