On June 10, 2021
The first results of a data anonymization project were released in May 2021 as a pre-beta online demo. Called “MAPA” (Multilingual Anonymization toolkit for Public Administrators), the project aims to help EU public administrators share data while staying compliant with data regulations.
MAPA is led by language service provider (LSP) Pangeanic, which was awarded EUR 1m in funding by the European Commission’s Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) in January 2020. Pangeanic is working alongside a number of partners including the National French Center for Scientific Research, LSP Tilde, language resource center ELRA, and the University of Malta.
Using AI processing of Named Entity Recognition (NER), the tool identifies personal details in line with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Data such as names, credit card numbers, dates, and professions are anonymized. Entering the English sentence “Rosalind Franklin was born on 25 July 1920,” for instance, will return “******* ******** was born on ** **** ****.”