Data Anonymisation Guideline

Regulation | 18-04-2024

1. Introduction

The purpose of this guideline is to indicate which case details and personal data can be anonymised in reports by experts and how to do this. This guideline applies to case details in reports for:

assessment or reassessment of court experts
workshops, peer reviews and training sessions for internal and external target groups

It is up to the expert to determine which data should be anonymised and how. This document serves as a guideline to help the expert in this process. See section 4 for exceptions.

2. Principle

Anonymisation refers to data that could lead directly or indirectly to the identification of a natural person, or the knowledge of which could prejudice the integrity of a person or a case. The procedure outlines how to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

3. Anonymisation

General principle: Any data that directly identifies a natural person must be anonymised.

Any data that directly identifies a natural person who is not professionally involved in the proceedings must be anonymised (victim, defendant, witnesses, etc.);
Data that may indirectly identify natural persons must be anonymised, unless the data is important for the assessment of the report (address details, specific locations, date of birth, photos, etc.);
Data about natural persons who are involved in the proceedings professionally and who are important for the assessment of the report will not be anonymised (experts, commissioning party, co-author of the report, etc.).

You can anonymise data in three different ways:

Data deletion
If data is not relevant to assess the report, it can be deleted completely.
Black out data
If data is not relevant to assess the report but cannot be deleted immediately, it can be blacked out. E.g. for non-editable photographs/images/text files. Please note that digital blacking out must be done in such a way that it cannot be undone. For example, the expert can use the 'Redact' option in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Generalise data
If data is relevant to assess the report, it can be generalised. Examples: names of victims and suspects can be generalised to [victim1] and [suspect1] and the name of the Public Prosecutor can be generalised to PP.

The diagram below serves as an example. At their discretion, experts can/may deviate from this. If in doubt, please contact the NRGD. The data below can be anonymised as follows:

Anonymisation examples
Personal data	Required for assessment	Potential processing	Comment
Case number	No	Own reference	For inclusion in List of Case Information
Date of report	Yes	n/a	For inclusion in List of Case Information
Name of author of report	Yes	n/a
Name of the co-author of the report/supervisor	Yes	n/a	Necessary for searching assessors
Other names	No	Deleting or Generalising data
Telephone numbers	No	Delete data
Date of request	Yes	Generalise data	State only the year
Reference of requesting party	No	Delete data
Reference of commissioning party	No	Delete data
Name PP/EJ/police	No	Generalise data	PP/EJ
Whereabouts defendant/person under investigation	Depends	Generalise data	E.g. Custodial institution/young-offenders institution
Locations	Depends	Generalise data	[domicile], [school], [crime scene1], etc.
Seal number identity seal	No	Delete data
Official report number	Depends	Generalise or delete data	When processing multiple reports in one file
Public Prosecutor's Office's number	No	Delete data
Examining judge’s number	No	Delete data
SIN number	No	Generalise data	Replace multiple SIN numbers with non-reducible number
Name of Defendant (1 to x)	No	Generalise data	Replace by [defendant] of [defendant1], [defendant2]
Victim (1 to x)	No	Generalise data	Replace by [victim] or [victim1], [victim2]
Witness (1 to x)	No	Generalise data	Replace by [witness] or [witness1], [witness2]
Names of family	No	Generalise data	Give mother, father, uncle, aunt etc another name
Date of birth	No	Generalise data	Replace by year of birth or age
Gender	Depends	Generalise data	M/F if required, X where possible
Place of birth	No	Generalise data	[place of birth]
Country of birth	Depends	Generalise data	[country of birth]
Ethnic group	Depends	Generalise data	Mention if relevant. E.g. for injury interpretation
Date of offence	Depends	Generalise data	For multiple offences [dateOffence1] etc.
Time examinations	Yes
Photos pieces of evidence	Depends	Black out data	Anonymise faces, registration numbers, IP addresses, etc., unless required for assessment of the report
DNA profiles	Yes

4. Principle

5. Exceptions

Reports from some fields of expertise do not lend themselves well to anonymisation because it does not improve readability or assessment. Legal Psychology is a field of expertise at the NRGD for which anonymising data often does not promote readability. It is therefore up to the expert to assess whether the reports should be anonymised.