Privacy vs Security: Understanding Key Differences

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1. 11 July 2026 · corrected by Melik Can Sariyer

   3 corrections applied: The 87%/three-attribute finding is Latanya Sweeney's (circa 2000), not the 2019 Nature Communications study (which found ~99.98% from 15 attributes). Fixes findings 1 and 2 (same span). | The mobility-dataset 'four points / 95%' finding is from 'Unique in the Crowd', Scientific Reports 2013, not 2015. | The concept was first proposed by Rivest, Adleman & Dertouzos (1978); Gentry (2009) produced the first fully homomorphic encryption construction, not the first proposal.

   Before

   a 2019 study published in Nature Communications demonstrated that 87% of Americans... Subsequent research by de Montjoye et al. (2015) confirmed that four spatiotemporal points... first proposal by Craig Gentry in 2009

   After

   research by Latanya Sweeney demonstrated that 87% of Americans... Subsequent research by de Montjoye et al. (2013) confirmed that four spatiotemporal points... first proposal by Rivest, Adleman, and Dertouzos in 1978, with the first fully homomorphic construction by Craig Gentry in 2009

   Why: Three corrections: the 87%%/three-attribute re-identification finding is Latanya Sweeney's (circa 2000), not the 2019 Nature Communications study; the mobility-dataset four-points/95%% finding is from 'Unique in the Crowd', Scientific Reports 2013, not 2015; and homomorphic encryption was first proposed by Rivest, Adleman & Dertouzos (1978), with Gentry (2009) producing the first full construction rather than the first proposal. Verified the live article body already reflects all three corrections. The faq field does not mention any of Sweeney, de Montjoye, Rivest, or Gentry, so no secondary fix was needed there.

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