🔍 To identify again 🕵️ To find identity

to reidentify

1 7.6

To find who someone is from data that was made anonymous

verb
/ˌriːˈaɪdɛntɪfaɪ/

Specialized

: reidentificar

After new techniques emerged, researchers managed to reidentify patients from old medical data.

Examples

With access to public databases, analysts may reidentify individuals previously protected by anonymity.
The company took extra steps to ensure that no one could reidentify users from the anonymized records.
It is possible to reidentify individuals in a dataset if enough external information is available.
The researchers will reidentify the participants in the study.
We need to reidentify the data to ensure accuracy.
Researchers can reidentify patients using advanced algorithms to analyze de-identified health records.
Privacy experts warn that certain metadata can allow companies to reidentify anonymized user data.

Synonyms

to identify

vsto reidentify

∞ 1.8

Say who someone is or what something is

determines identity specifically from data that was previously anonymized

Antonyms

to anonymize

Specialized

3 6.3

Remove or hide personal details so a person cannot be recognized

How Certain

to establish

Formal

207 4.1

to verify

292 3.5

to confirm

∞ 1.8

to reidentify

Specialized

1 7.6

to identify

∞ 1.8

to suspect

247 3.7

guess

601 1.0

Surface Forms

reidentify infinitive

reidentified past

reidentified past participle

reidentifying present participle

reidentifies third person singular

Morphology

reidentify = identify (semi-transparent) = re + ident + ify

The prefix 're-' is recognizable, but this data-privacy sense is specialized and not simply a straightforward everyday 'identify again' for many learners.

Etymology

The word reidentify comes from the prefix re- meaning 'again' and the verb identify meaning 'to know who someone is'. So, to reidentify in data work is to find or 'unmask' a person from records that were made anonymous.