Anonymity

 You Don’t Know Me

You give your hand to me
And then you say "Goodbye"
And I watched you walk away
Beside the lucky guy
Oh, you'll never ever know
The one who loved you so
No, you don't know me

When we ask to be anonymous, how hard is it to know us?

Recently a right-wing Catholic newsletter unmasked a high ranking priest as using the Grindr App, despite its promise to be anonymous.  Can any App promise to be anonymous?

Any App, or site, that tracks your location, as many smartphone Apps do, can never be anonymous.  At best it can mask your identity, but with enough inductive reasoning it is possible to unmask you.

While the app may not record identifying information, your location may be used to unmask your identity.  If there are certain locations that only you can be, and those location are stored, then if a site observes that you are at that location, then you are not anonymous to someone who also knows who can be at that  location.  If your location has been tracked over many days, it may be assumed that between the hours of 2 AM and 6 AM that the location where you are most frequently observed is your home, and that the location on weekdays where you are most frequently observed between Noon and 4 PM is your work.  Tax assessor, employment, voting and any other public information can be combined with this location information to unmask you.  A site can promise to mask you.  It can make peering behind that mask very difficult.  It can’t promise that no one will ever peer behind  that mask.