Anonymizing user identifiable information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10754985-B2
Application number	US-201815876748-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 22, 2018
Priority date	Feb 22, 2013
Publication date	Aug 25, 2020
Grant date	Aug 25, 2020

Abstract

The disclosed techniques provide systems and methods for anonymizing various portions of information, action logs, end-user information, and/or other data sets that are stored in non-indexed storage systems. More specifically, various anonymization procedures are described for redacting UII and/or replacing UII in raw data with randomly generated information (RGI). The anonymization process is performed on a rolling basis as raw data is received. An anonymization mapping table maps (or associates) the replaced UII in the anonymized data to the RGI, and eventually all raw data can be deleted.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a computing system, comprising:
receiving, by the computing system, an indication to delete an account associated with a user of a social networking system;
identifying, by the computing system, a user identifier (UID) associated with the user, wherein the UID uniquely identifies the user in the social networking system;
accessing, by the computing system, an anonymization identification map from computer memory of a data warehouse, wherein the anonymization identification map associates the UID with a randomly generated user identifier (RID) and instances of the UID are replaced by the RID in one or more anonymized data sets in the computer memory of the data warehouse; and
disassociating, by the computing system, the UID from the RID in the anonymization identification map.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
removing, by the computing system, the UIDs from a list of active UIDs.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
storing, by the computing system, the anonymization identification map with the UID disassociated from the RID in the data warehouse.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein accessing the anonymization identification map includes generating an anonymized data set from a raw data set using the anonymization identification map, the raw data set including one or more instances of the UID.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein generating the anonymized data set includes:
scanning, by the computing system, the raw data set to identify a complex structure;
determining, by the computing system, a primary UID associated with the complex structure;
parsing, by the computing system, the complex structure to identify a key associated with the UID;
identifying, by the computing system, a value associated with the key; and
replacing, by the computing system, the value with RID associated with the primary UID.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:
determining, by the computing system, that the key is another complex structure;
parsing, by the computing system, the key to identify an additional key if a max depth threshold is not exceeded;
identifying, by the computing system, an additional value associated with the additional key; and
replacing, by the computing system, the additional value with RID associated with the primary UID.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein generating the anonymized data set using the anonymization identification map comprises:
identifying, by the computing system, a type of data in a column of the raw data set based on a metadata tag associated with the column;
determining, by the computing system, an action associated with the metadata tag; and
performing, by the computing system, the action to anonymize the data in the column.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein performing the action to anonymize the data in the column comprises replacing the one or more instances of UID in the column with an associated RID.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein performing the action to anonymize the data in the column comprises executing a computer script to sanitize the data.

10. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
scanning, by the processor, a non-indexed raw data set from computer memory of a data warehouse to determine a list of user identifiers (UIDs), wherein each UID uniquely identifies a user of a social networking system;
generating, by the processor, an anonymization identification map by associating the UIDs with randomly generated user identifiers (RIDs);
performing, by the processor, an anonymization process on the raw data set by replacing the UIDs in the raw data set with associated RIDs; and
removing, by the processor, an association between a specific UID and an associated RID in response to receiving an indication to delete an account associated with a user of a social networking system, wherein the user of the social networking system is uniquely identified by the specific UID.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the method further comprises:
counting, by the processor, a first number of rows in the raw data set prior to performing the anonymization process, wherein the non-indexed raw data includes a plurality of tables, each table having a plurality of rows;
counting, by the processor, a second number of rows in the data set subsequent to performing the anonymization process; and
comparing, by the processor, the first number of rows and the second number of rows to determine if the anonymization process exceeds an error threshold.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein performing the anonymization process on the raw data set includes:
scanning, by the computing system, the raw data set to identify a complex structure;
determining, by the computing system, a primary UID associated with the complex structure;
parsing, by the computing system, the complex structure to identify a key associated with the UID;
identifying, by the computing system, a value associated with the key; and
replacing, by the computing system, the value with RID associated with the primary UID.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:
determining, by the computing system, that the key is another complex structure;
parsing, by the computing system, the key to identify an additional key if a max depth threshold is not exceeded;
identifying, by the computing system, an additional value associated with the additional key; and
replacing, by the computing system, the additional value with RID associated with the primary UID.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein performing the anonymization process on the raw data set includes:
identifying, by the computing system, a type of data in a column of the raw data set based on a metadata tag associated with the column;
determining, by the computing system, an action associated with the metadata tag; and
performing, by the computing system, the action to anonymize the data in the column.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein performing the action to anonymize the data in the column comprises replacing the one or more instances of UID in the column with an associated RID.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein performing the action to anonymize the data in the column comprises executing a computer script to sanitize the data.

17. A system, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory storing instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive an indication to delete an account associated with a user of a social networking system,
identify a user identifier (UID) associated with the user, wherein the UID uniquely identifies the user in the social networking system,
access an anonymization identification map from computer memory of a data warehouse, wherein the anonymization identification map associates the UID with a randomly generated user identifier (RID) and instances of the UID are replaced by the RID in one or more anonymized data sets in the computer memory of the data warehouse,
disassociate the UID from the RID in the anonymization identification map, and
remove the UIDs from a list of active UIDs.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the processor is configured to generate an anonymized data set from a raw data set using the anonymization identification map, the raw data se

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Kramer Adam
• Lento Thomas
• Goel Rajat
• Murthy Raghotham Sathyanarayana
• Shingte Nileema Bharat
• Ranganathan Karthik
• Agarwal Ankit
• Menon Sameer

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• G06F16/2272

  Management thereof · CPC title

• G06F21/6254 Primary

  by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification · CPC title

• G06Q2220/10

  Usage protection of distributed data files · CPC title

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic