Personal data that has undergone anonymization refers to data that does not — even indirectly — help identify a given individual and cannot be linked to that person in any way. Anonymization is an irreversible process with no possibility of re-identifying the individual.

Anonymized data can then be handled with far greater freedom, as it is not subject to the strict rules on personal data protection. This type of data is subsequently used in generally larger volumes — for example, in statistical analysis.

Unfortunately, simply deleting a name from a document is often not enough to achieve anonymization — particularly when other data in the document points to a specific individual.
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Anonymization must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

The new Anonymization feature anonymizes personal data values on a selected record for which no valid legal basis exists. Optional values are deleted. Mandatory values are replaced with the anonymization placeholder ***NN. If anonymization is triggered on a Company Address record, all records in which that address is used are also anonymized.

Let's now walk through an example of the anonymization process.

The validity of the purpose for retaining personal data on one of our liabilities has expired.

In the top toolbar, open the dropdown menu labeled GDPR on the relevant record and select the Anonymize function:

Confirm your intent to anonymize the data:

Result:

In our example, the company name was deleted from the liability record. No other data requiring anonymization was present on the liability.