Pseudonymous Identifiability as a Societal Problem

Zitiervorschlag: Ahti Saarenpää, Pseudonymous Identifiability as a Societal Problem, in: Jusletter IT 21. Februar 2019

The use of pseudonymous identifiers for various purposes is a longstanding practice, and attention was drawn to their legal implications quite some time ago. More often than not the interest lay in criminal law. Typically, the question asked was when using a false name was permitted or prohibited. It was particularly important for an individual to use his or her correct identity when interacting with public authorities. The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has cast the use of pseudonymous data in a new light legally. It contains provisions dealing explicitly with the use and processing of pseudonymous data. Legislation to date has left us with the impression that anonymous data is the opposite of personal data. The concept of personal data is a broad one: it is data that enables identification directly or indirectly. The crucial consideration here is that an individual can be identified. This must not be circumvented through pseudonyms. Anonymous data, however, is data that makes it impossible to identify individuals. To this day data protection legislation has never applied to the processing of such data. This makes the concept of anonymous data a very important one legally. The GDPR made pseudonymous data an explicit aspect of European data protection legislation. With the Regulation now in force, the use of pseudonyms is an integral and default procedure in implementing data protection as well as information security. Using pseudonymous data enables us to reduce the risks relating to the processing of personal data, but may cause a range of problems where openness is concerned in our modern network society. What is good for data protection is not always so good for other constitutional rights, especially openness. My article reflects on the benefits and liabilities involved in the use of pseudonyms. With a view to the functioning of the public sector, it delves shortly into the impacts that the principle of public access to official documents might have on the use and processing of pseudonymized data.

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