Anonymise data by replacing holding identifiers with prefix-integer combinations

anonymise() anonymises a holding or movement data frame by replacing holding identifiers with prefix-integer combinations. Both the anonymised data frame and the anonymisation key are returned. By default, a new anonymisation key is generated; alternatively, an existing key can be provided.

Usage

anonymise(data, prefix = NULL, key = NULL)

Arguments

data: A holding or movement data frame.
prefix: Character string, to form the basis of anonymised holding identifiers. An integer will be appended to form this new identifier.
key: A named character vector to be used as anonymisation key, or NULL (default) to generate a new key. A provided key should have original holding identifiers as names, and new (anonymised) identifiers as values.

Value

A named list with two elements:

data containing the anonymised data frame
key containing the applied anonymisation key. This has the form of a named character vector, with original holding identifiers as names, and new (anonymised) identifiers as values.

Details

Requires that the appropriate config file is loaded, to identify the column(s) in data that contain(s) holding identifiers: origin (from) and destination (to) columns for movement data, or the id column for holding data.

If key == NULL (default), a new anonymisation key is generated, with holdings being given new identifiers consisting of prefix followed by an integer ranging between 1 and the total number of holdings. Integers are assigned to holdings in a random order.

If an existing key is provided, its coverage of holding identifiers in data is checked. If all holding identifiers in data are present among element names in key, the key is used for anonymisation as-is: holding identifiers in data are replaced with the values of elements of the same name in key. Otherwise, if data contains holding identifiers that are not present in key, the key is expanded by adding additional prefix-integer combinations.