Anonymizing people data

Want to remove a person from PI and permanently anonymize their data? Organization admins can do so by anonymizing their people data.

What is anonymization?

Anonymization is the process of removing all personally identifiable information (PII) associated with users and candidates. When you anonymize someone’s people data, that data can no longer be linked to the specific individual.

Note: Anonymized records cannot be restored. 

Why should I anonymize?

Anonymization is useful when your organization wants to retire data it no longer needs. For instance, you may choose to anonymize data for any of the following reasons:

• You’ve completed a hire and wish to retire any other candidate data.
• An employee has left your organization and will likely not return.
• To comply with your company’s internal data retention policies or applicable legal requirements.

It is strongly recommended that you only anonymize a record when you’re confident you will no longer need to refer to a certain candidate or employee’s data.

How to anonymize an employee or candidate

1. Log in to the PI software
2. Click the gear icon () in the top-right of the navigation bar. 
3. You will land on the People tab within the Administration page.
4. Select the Organization Settings tab.
5. Click Anonymize People Data on the left-hand side.

The following steps depend on whether or not you plan to anonymize just a few people (e.g., 1 or 2) or anonymize them in bulk.

To anonymize individual people:

1. Select “Search for one or more records to anonymize.”
2. Enter the email address(es) of the person(s) you’d like to anonymize.
3. Click Review anonymization.
4. Review the information, then confirm by clicking Anonymize records.
5. The records will automatically be anonymized at approximately 1am EST.

Note: You must first remove an employee’s software access before you can anonymize them.

To anonymize people in bulk:

1. Select “Schedule bulk anonymization.”
2. Choose whether to anonymize candidates, archived employees, or both.
3. Choose how far back you’d like to anonymize records. (You can either anonymize all marching records or anonymize those older than a set number of days.)
4. Choose whether to perform this action once or automate this action every day.
5. Click Review anonymization.
6. Review the information, then confirm by clicking Schedule anonymization.
7. The records will automatically be anonymized at approximately 1am EST.

Important: To ensure new hires aren’t accidentally anonymized, verify that you have marked these candidates as “hired” within PI Hire.

What data is viewable post-anonymization?

The vast majority of anonymized data is either removed from the PI software or no longer accessible. However, there are a few cases in which an anonymized person’s data can still be viewed:

• If an anonymized employee is being used as a top performer, that Behavioral Target will remain available. However, in place of the person’s name, the target will say “Anonymous.”
• If an anonymized employee contributed to a collaborative target, their behavioral and/or cognitive inputs will remain available.
• Anonymization has no impact on Diagnose data, as employee survey data is already confidential and anonymous. Learn more about data privacy in Diagnose.

FAQ

Additional support

• Removing employee software access
• Transferring ownership