As a standard, personal and confidential data are anonymised in the social sciences prior to storage and before making data available for re-use. However, studies have shown that if you link a few anonymised data sets, it is indeed possible to re-identifiy the persons behind it. We offer PhD positions for a the SecHuman 2.0 graduate programme to two scholars, who will investigate how re-identification unfolds and how it is possible to protect against it. We are looking for one Math doctoral candidate and one candidate with background and interest in Science & Technology Studies (STS). The latter will be supervised by Estrid Sørensen and become part of the CUPAK team and the RUSTlab. The task of the STS PhD scholar will be to conduct an ethnographic study of how both social and technical data practices in the social sciences enable and protect against re-identification, and of the epistemic effects in social science both of the possibility for re-identification and of the protection against re-identification. The Math and the STS scholar will collaborate in developing processes to protect against re-identification.
Please find the official call here.
Please find more information about the PhD-topic on the protection against re-identification of linked data here.