Data leakage

If personal data has been imperfectly anonymised, it may be possible by piecing it together (perhaps with data available from other sources) to reconstruct the identity of some data subjects together with personal data about them. The personal data, which should not have been published (see data protection ), may be said to have ‘leaked’ from the ‘anonymised’ data. Other kinds of confidential data can also be subject to leakage by, for example, poor data security measures. See de-identification.