Mastercard Incorporated
SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR EFFECTIVELY ANONYMIZING CONSUMER TRANSACTION DATA

Abstract:

Systems and methods are described for anonymizing personal information of consumers in a manner that protects against de-anonymization by a third party. In an embodiment, a system includes a data anonymizing subsystem and a payment transaction subsystem. A data preparation engine of the data anonymizing subsystem receives, from the payment transaction subsystem, consumer transaction data comprising personal information of a plurality of consumers and item identifiers, prepares the consumer transaction data and transmits the prepared consumer transaction data to an anonymization engine which receives and anonymizes the prepared consumer transaction data. In particular, the anonymization engine groups consumers associated with the prepared consumer transaction data into a plurality of consumer groups, quantifies a similarity between the plurality of consumer groups, combines the plurality of consumer groups, and discards all the consumer groups that contain less than a threshold number of consumers. A reporting engine then transmits the anonymized consumer transaction data to a third party device for consumer transaction analysis.