ABSTRACT
In 2000, research by Sweeney [1] demonstrated that publicly available database information, for example, on the Internet, could show that an overwhelming percentage of United States residents had information easily available in order to allow intruders or hackers to facilitate the capture of such personal information, through techniques we now refer to as “dumpster diving.” Her research demonstrated that approximately 87% of the United States population can be identified uniquely using only the USA five-digit postal code, date of birth (including year), and gender. However, Sweeney’s technique made no attempt to develop similar estimates for other countries, nor for sub-jurisdictions in her research, for example, by US State.
Subsequently, these results found by Sweeney were extended by Patterson and Winston-Proctor [2] to provide similar data in a number of other countries, with a primary emphasis on countries most susceptible to data privacy attacks.
Although this result has held up over time, given the demographic parameters used in developing this estimate, Sweeney’s technique made no attempt to develop similar estimates for other countries. In this paper, we use Sweeney’s technique in order to provide estimates of the ability of similar demographics to provide the same type of data in a number of other countries, particularly those that tend to be as susceptible to data privacy attacks as the United States.
