Hi Lucia,

We have moved away from recommending anonymisation of images, and suggest gaining consent to share or controlled access instead.  I have copied our current advice below.  Of course, every case is unique and if you want to email more particulars, I will try to comment further. 

Best,

Libby

https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/manage-data/legal-ethical/anonymisation/qualitative

Anonymising audio-visual data

For anonymising audio-visual data such as digital images or audio recordings, digital editing to remove identifying detail should be done sensitively.  Bleeping out names or place names is acceptable, but disguising voices by altering the pitch in a recording, or obscuring faces by pixellating sections of a video image significantly reduces the usefulness of data. These processes are also highly labour intensive and expensive.

If confidentiality of audio-visual data is an issue, it is better to obtain the participant's consent to use and share the data unaltered.

Where anonymisation would result in too much loss of data content, regulating access to data can be considered as an effective strategy.

We urge researchers to consider and judge at an early stage the implications of depositing materials containing confidential information and to get in touch to consult on any issues.

From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lucia Lotter
Sent: 10 February 2016 08:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Anonymisation of digital photographs

Dear All

I would like to learn about best practice for the anonymisation of faces and location identifiers in digital photographs. I need to understand the underlying complexities, identify techniques which are practical and cost effective, and know how to apply these using appropriate software (which is hopefully open source).  

Any information, references, how to guides, comments on experiences and lessons learnt in this regard will be gratefully received.

Regards

Lucia

Lucia Lötter, PhD Manager Data Curation Research Methodology and Data Centre Human Sciences Research Council http://www.hsrc.ac.za  Private Bag X41, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa Tel 27 (12) 302 2110 Fax 27 (12) 349 8797 Email [log in to unmask]

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