Deidentifying

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Removing details that could reveal a person's identity from data, records or documents so that individuals cannot be recognized
2. Stripping names, addresses and other identifying information from information so that the people it describes remain anonymous
3. Taking out personal markers from a dataset or file to protect the privacy of the individuals whose information it contains

Etymology: The verb "deidentify" is built from the prefix "de-", which in English means "remove or reverse", attached to "identify". So the core idea is taking away the features that make something recognisable as a particular person or thing. The prefix does the work here: "de-" has long been used to form verbs meaning undoing or stripping away, as in "decode" or "defrost," and "deidentify" follows that pattern directly. Its use is most common in data protection and research, where personal records are stripped of names, addresses and other identifiers so that individuals cannot be picked out. The "-ing" ending simply turns the verb into a participle or gerund, so "deidentifying" describes the ongoing act of removing those markers.

Synonyms: anonymizing, anonymising, depersonalizing, sanitizing

Antonyms: identifying, personalizing, recognizing