
Ask HN: Is a survey anonymous if an entity can easily identify the person? - omalamo
I&#x27;m currently working at an IT school department. We have a intranet where all students and teachers are registered and manage the school bureaucracies.<p>By law, at the end of the year, we have to ask everyone for feedback, so we can improve things. This survey is advertised as anonymous.<p>To make sure everyone has answered, the system creates a simple relationship in a database, between the person (identified with the school number) and their answers.<p>After that, our team exports this data and hands over to a person to interpret it.<p>I don&#x27;t think this is anonymous, but this person says it is, because &quot;I won&#x27;t identify&quot; and &quot;no one else in the public can identify it&quot;.<p>Is that so?
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Nextgrid
It's not anonymous; even if the intended user can't identify anyone, the
people above them can (as they have access to the infrastructure). It would be
a bit different if the survey was hosted on a neutral third-party's
infrastructure. Furthermore the simple fact that the data exists means it can
leak by accident later on down the line and this would apply to both in-house
and third-party surveys.

