The incentive is that they're academics and want to do the right thing. Maybe more pessemistically, they don't want to be called out by other academics doing th

The incentive is that they're academics and want to do the right thing. Maybe more pessemistically, they don't want to be called out by other academics doing the right thing. If we go back to the original topic, which is that deidentifying data with some known fields is possible, do you think a reputable academic will want to be known for denying a simple arithmetic estimation? They'd be the laughingstock in their department and community.