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I read a paper on ArXiv.org several years ago, at least 5 or 6 I would guess, that used these ideas to come up with a process by which you can modify a dataset

I read a paper on ArXiv.org several years ago, at least 5 or 6 I would guess, that used these ideas to come up with a process by which you can modify a dataset such that any statistics gathered could not possibly be used to de-anonymize any participant. I have since frequently wondered why no one was aware of or using these techniques. Is it just that there is a lack of a usable implementation?

schoen 12y ago
There are some implementations, like PINQ: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/PINQ/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/PINQ/ One difficulty is that the modification isn't necessarily a one-time thing that then allows the dataset to be published. In many of Dwork's proposed applications, the dataset is maintained by a trusted party and gets modified on-the-fly by adding appropriate noise in response to particular database queries. So for most of these, you can't just imagine "do this to the database, and then you can publish it on your web site"; it has to be interactive. In that case, there just may not be that many situations (yet?) where people agree on who can and can't be trusted with the personal data, and want to cooperate to set up this kind of relationship.