Latanya Sweeney

Latanya Sweeney

An American computer scientist at Harvard who demonstrated that supposedly anonymised datasets could often be re-identified by cross-referencing a small number of attributes, and developed k-anonymity, a formal standard for how much a dataset must be generalised to protect individual privacy. She later served as chief technology officer at the US Federal Trade Commission, applying her research on data privacy and algorithmic bias to consumer protection. (See also: Training data, Algorithmic bias)