Data Anonymization: An Experimental Evaluation Using Open-Source Tools

Abstract

In recent years, the use of personal data in marketing, scientific and medical investigation, and forecasting future trends has really increased. This information is used by the government, companies, and individuals, and should not contain any sensitive information that allows the identification of an individual. Therefore, data anonymization is essential nowadays. Data anonymization changes the original data to make it difficult to identify an individual. ARX Data Anonymization and Amnesia are two popular open-source tools that simplify this process. In this paper, we evaluate these tools in two ways: with the OSSpal methodology, and using a public dataset with the most recent tweets about the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. The assessment with the OSSpal methodology determines that ARX Data Anonymization has better results than Amnesia. In the experimental evaluation using the public dataset, it is possible to verify that Amnesia has some errors and limitations, but the anonymization process is simpler. Using ARX Data Anonymization, it is possible to upload big datasets and the tool does not show any error in the anonymization process. We concluded that ARX Data Anonymization is the one recommended to use in data anonymization.