The owner of a credit card can be isolated from a list of all the million in four purchases

Researchers from MIT exposed several myths about privacy in today's society. They found that even incomplete data on four purchases made using credit cards, allowing for the identification of man in 90% of cases. Only need to know the date and place of purchase. These data were compared with the list of transactions for the three months committed by more than a million people.

Furthermore, if we use rough price data purchases (purchase price up to 50%), the number of anchor points is reduced to three, and the accuracy increases to 94%. That is, for example, armed with one thrown you a check, one photo of your breakfast in the cafe of Instagram and the one your tweet with a message about buying a new gadget, you can almost certainly identify you in the list of transactions among a million other buyers.

For the study was used by the transaction list, including the names and locations of shops, as well as the date and amount of purchase. Purchases made with a credit card, have been marked by the same id. While working on the project, researchers tried a different number of reference points, from two to five. Even when using two points without any information about the purchase price person identification is made possible in 40% of cases. Using a five-point lead to results close to 100%.

The question arose - how could change the set of data that it is still relevant from the point of view of economists and marketers, but improved customer privacy. To this end, researchers have tried to make the information less precise, enlarging the time period up to a week of purchase and place of purchase generalized to 150 stores in a certain area. And still on the four reference points, which contains the purchase price within 50%, it was possible to identify a person from a common set of transactions with a probability of 70%.

Modern facilities for handling large data allow of such a seemingly impersonal information as the basis of purchases, or the base movements and the use of mobile phones , build unexpectedly accurate conclusions. Perhaps ordinary citizens wary of such opportunities is not necessary. But do not need to have any illusions about your anonymity if you for some reason this is important. Especially when you are actively using social networks, mobile phones and bank cards.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/244422/