anonymizer

anonymizer anonymizes data containing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) using a combination of salting and hashing. You can find quality examples of data anonymization in R here, here, and here.

Installation

You can install the latest development version from CRAN:

install.packages("anonymizer")

Or from GitHub with:

if (packageVersion("devtools") < 1.6) {
  install.packages("devtools")
}
devtools::install_github("paulhendricks/anonymizer")

If you encounter a clear bug, please file a minimal reproducible example on GitHub.

API

anonymizer employs four convenience functions: salt, unsalt, hash, and anonymize.

library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = FALSE)
library(anonymizer)
letters %>% head
#> [1] "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f"
letters %>% head %>% salt(.seed = 1)
#> [1] "gjoxfagjoxf" "gjoxfbgjoxf" "gjoxfcgjoxf" "gjoxfdgjoxf" "gjoxfegjoxf"
#> [6] "gjoxffgjoxf"
letters %>% head %>% salt(.seed = 1) %>% unsalt(.seed = 1)
#> [1] "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f"
letters %>% head %>% hash(.algo = "crc32")
#> [1] "c0749952" "597dc8e8" "2e7af87e" "b01e6ddd" "c7195d4b" "5e100cf1"
letters %>% head %>% salt(.seed = 1) %>% hash(.algo = "crc32")
#> [1] "b0891ad8" "361d6876" "fd41bbd3" "e0448b6b" "2b1858ce" "ad8c2a60"
letters %>% head %>% anonymize(.algo = "crc32", .seed = 1)
#> [1] "b0891ad8" "361d6876" "fd41bbd3" "e0448b6b" "2b1858ce" "ad8c2a60"

Generate data containing fake PII

library(generator)
n <- 6
set.seed(1)
ashley_madison <- 
  data.frame(name = r_full_names(n), 
             snn = r_national_identification_numbers(n), 
             dob = r_date_of_births(n), 
             email = r_email_addresses(n), 
             ip = r_ipv4_addresses(n), 
             phone = r_phone_numbers(n), 
             credit_card = r_credit_card_numbers(n), 
             lat = r_latitudes(n), 
             lon = r_longitudes(n), 
             stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
knitr::kable(ashley_madison, format = "markdown")

name	snn	dob	email	ip	phone	credit_card	lat	lon
Eldridge Pfannerstill	442-34-5338	1993-04-28	ntakqojv@lgbcyk.rkv	45.84.71.225	6794976958	4125-7204-9193-5140	-2.7018575	8.634988
Augustine Homenick	799-44-6396	1912-09-08	iqg@mtcuh.viy	191.116.55.106	3275827694	2182-5994-2283-9486	-70.4148630	-65.827918
Jennie Runte	941-11-5441	1985-01-12	wjszy@sjhreocvt.gbp	27.128.73.17	7419351735	4370-4866-4735-7857	-45.4091701	-79.932229
Araceli Kunde	290-44-2675	1948-04-28	uljsnvhfr@qfdkumtn.jkd	221.47.229.86	3243246285	6682-5074-2898-9396	-0.2673845	103.514583
Josue Rau	686-88-8446	1996-06-14	c@lqxzkdpi.nfy	157.136.114.185	9169736873	4510-3757-4858-5236	-22.8839925	72.886505
Elnora Zemlak	212-40-7016	1976-01-09	capvnl@nympzf.gsk	143.20.199.87	3295843196	7206-6205-2194-6432	78.2444466	-120.590050

Detect data containing PII

library(detector)
ashley_madison %>% 
  detect %>% 
  knitr::kable(format = "markdown")

column_name	has_email_addresses	has_phone_numbers	has_national_identification_numbers
name	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE
snn	FALSE	FALSE	TRUE
dob	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE
email	TRUE	FALSE	FALSE
ip	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE
phone	FALSE	TRUE	FALSE
credit_card	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE
lat	FALSE	TRUE	FALSE
lon	FALSE	TRUE	FALSE

Anonymize data containing PII

ashley_madison[] <- lapply(ashley_madison, anonymize, .algo = "crc32")
ashley_madison %>% 
  knitr::kable(format = "markdown")

name	snn	dob	email	ip	phone	credit_card	lat	lon
c83b4030	393d73d7	18fe3e97	aa5dead	e4b6e2c6	d3af086b	cb7b5ba	80064d9e	7dc18006
98a6974d	70ac65b0	bf8857eb	a75947f0	5e0e7cef	5c562036	7cd11025	fdf9526d	5828b961
77dcbc4d	391740d7	f0b13e46	6cefaee2	fbaaa8f1	9a66f57d	299a42fe	734886e3	9ea0e9a5
a48e2b0b	6704117d	2e40fae7	e1598468	b7a422ba	1f0a0373	f420590f	53155b41	81018fc
4fecaeb2	9d6bf732	e881bbe7	4b412ff9	d1f2740c	ac553e93	e3716031	f3d9a005	ef3bdb8d
abc3b85c	90866189	6cefc2f4	f26e84b1	52596e0e	b14fa5df	9189fc4f	85c69f65	f0db3bb0

Citation

To cite package ‘anonymizer’ in publications use:

Paul Hendricks (2015). anonymizer: Anonymize Data Containing Personally Identifiable Information. R package version 0.2.0. https://github.com/paulhendricks/anonymizer

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

@Manual{,
  title = {anonymizer: Anonymize Data Containing Personally Identifiable Information},
  author = {Paul Hendricks},
  year= {2015}, 
  note = {R package version 0.2.0},
  url = {https://github.com/paulhendricks/anonymizer},
}