anonymize

verb anon·y·mize \ ə-ˈnä-nə-ˌmīz \

variants: also British anonymise

|Updated on: 17 Jun 2018

Definition of anonymize

anonymized; anonymizing

: to remove identifying information from (something, such as computer data) so that the original source cannot be known : to make (something) anonymous

There's an incredible amount of data in your travel profile. So they improved security and created a sophisticated way to anonymize data.
—Dana Hawkins

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anonymization

also British anonymisation play \ə-ˌnä-nə-mə-ˈzā-shən\ noun

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anonymizer

also British anonymiser noun

Recent Examples of anonymize from the Web

On the blog itself, comments are public and people often anonymize themselves.

— sarah scoles, Longreads, "Meet the New Mormons," 8 June 2018
Equally important, Apple has invested heavily in building data mining tools that respect user privacy and attempt to anonymize and obfuscate user data in mathematically defensible ways.

— alex salkever, Fortune, "Commentary: Apple Actually Cares About Users’ Data. Facebook Could Learn a Lesson.," 27 Mar. 2018
To allay that fear, researchers anonymize genomes and follow health privacy laws.

— bradley j. fikes, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Does your genome really give you away? Scientists criticize Human Longevity study," 12 Sep. 2017
In many markets, including the United States, Uber has the technology to act as a middleman and anonymize contact details during calls and texts.

— jordan golson, Car and Driver, "Uber App Gets a Chat Function to Better Connect Drivers and Riders," 10 Aug. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'anonymize.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.