'Anonymized' Credit Card Data Not So Anonymous, MIT Study Shows

schwit1 writes Scientists showed they can identify you with more than 90 percent accuracy by looking at just four purchases, three if the price is included — and this is after companies "anonymized" the transaction records, saying they wiped away names and other personal details. The study out of MIT, published Thursday in the journal Science, examined three months of credit card records for 1.1 million people. "We are showing that the privacy we are told that we have isn't real," study co-author Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an email.

Comments

Re:Regular users only

[jbgroup1]

If you don't count my student loans, I'm well off and have plenty of money.

Of course, "Outside of the killings, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country"--Marion S. Barry Jr., 1989

Re:Why even 3?

[Courageous]

This article isn't scary. What should be scary is that cell companies cell anonymitized _geolocation_ data. That data can be used to deterimine: A) who you are, B) where you live, C) where you work, and D) who your friends are. Step #1. Look where the phone is, regularly at midnight. Step #2, cross reference with public records databases on property ownership. That get's 65% of Americans right there. Now check where it parks every day at noon. Place of work found. And so forth.

Re:Regular users only

[mjwx]

Not sure what you're talking about. My credit card has no fees

It has no fees you know about... And banks want to keep it that way. When you pay for something by credit card, the merchant pays 3% or more for accepting the card. This means they have to pass the cost onto you in the form of higher prices.

You didn't think the bank gave you free money did you?

Its Machiavellian in its brilliance, you're robbing yourself of 3% in order to give yourself 1% and you're so enamoured with it, you're trying to do this as much as possible.