This guide is meant to provide an introduction and practical guidance to organisations that are new to anonymisation on how to appropriately perform basic anonymisation and de-identification of structured1, textual2, non-complex datasets3. It presents the anonymisation workflow in the context of four common use cases.

This guide is not exhaustive in dealing with all the issues relating to anonymisation, de-identification and re-identification of datasets. Organisations are advised to consider hiring anonymisation experts, statisticians or independent risk assessors to perform the appropriate anonymisation techniques or assessment of re-identification risks, where anonymisation issues are complex (e.g. large datasets containing a wide range of longitudinal or sensitive personal data).