Ensuring Confidentiality of Geocoded Health Data: Assessing Geographic Masking Strategies for Individual-Level Data
Figure 1
Disclosure of confidential information by publishing coordinates. Figure 1(a) shows an example of a hypothetical set of coordinates. Plotting these on a small scale map (b) provides an approximate location (i.e., Rio Rancho). Zooming in using a large scale map (c) provides a very exact location, which can be used to identify the street address associated with the set of coordinates (e.g., 1364 Peppoli Loop SE). Aerial imagery (d) can be used to confirm the specific residence.
(a) Unique coordinate pair (hypothetical) to describe a specific location
