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Anonymising data is surprisingly difficult. I'm wondering if there is the "falsehoods programmers believe about" about this, as there are for topics such as names, addresses, time, etc.?

In support of this:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/researchers-spotlight-the-...

Two quick thoughts: Some data is inherently non-anonymous, like face images. Data that is now anonymous may be de-anonymized in the future.

All human-produced data is inherently non-anonymous.

The only respectful mechanical way to use it is through information-theoretic guarantees, e.g. using it for zero-knowledge proofs and then burning the data.

De-anonymising is possible because of the data via direct or indirect correlations.

Sometimes the data is an image of your face and you don't want it to be used for any algorithm, regardless it has your name associated to it or not