deidentify

Syllables: de·i·dent·if·y/ˌdiː.aɪˈdɛnt.ɪf.aɪ/

deidentify verb: to remove personal identifying information (PII) from data, sometimes preserving the original identification data separately; to anonymize data (though it may be possible to reidentify via data aggregation and correlation).

Verb

deidentify (third-person singular simple present deidentifies, present participle deidentifying, simple past and past participle deidentified)

To remove personal identifying information (PII) from data, sometimes preserving the original identification data separately; to anonymize data (though it may be possible to reidentify via data aggregation and correlation).
- So the first step in anonymizing microdata is to “deidentify” (anonymize) the microdata by removing identifiers such as name of business and address (Willenbourg and de Waal 2001; Ramanayake and Zayatz 2010), but this can still leave[…]2013 July 1, Ger Snijkers, Gustav Haraldsen, Jacqui Jones, Diane Willimack, Designing and Conducting Business Surveys, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN
- A fundamental problem with efforts to protect individuals from identification, Barth-Jones said, is that as more is done to deidentify or anonymize the data, the less useful the information is for statistical analyses.2016 May 29, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Roundtable on Environmental Health...
Antonyms:

identify, reidentify
To cease or forgo identifying (with).
- […] will be perceived by others in terms of the imputed qualities of the role, thus making it more difficult for the person to deidentify with that role.2000, Blake Ashforth, Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-based Perspective, Routledge, →ISBN, page 104
- Differentiation in families requires that siblings be able to identify with some characteristics of their brothers and sisters, and to deidentify with others.2014, John V Caffaro, John V. Caffaro, Allison Conn Caffaro, Sibling Abuse Trauma: Assessment and Intervention Strategies for Children, Families, and Adults, Routledge, →ISBN

Examples of deidentify in a sentence

You can anonymize or deidentify e-PHI by removing all of these identifiers.John T. Finnell, Clinical Informatics Study Guide: Text and Review (Springer Nature), page 153
Second-boms are significantly more likely to deidentify with firstborns than with third-boms although they resemble both in age,[…]2014, M. E. Lamb, B. Sutton-Smith, Brian Sutton-Smith, Michael E. Lamb, Sibling Relationships: their Nature and Significance Across the...
Conversely, there is a tendency to deidentify with low-status social groups, but only when group boundaries are permeable […]2016, Jas M. Sullivan, William E. Cross Jr., Meaning-Making, Internalized Racism, and African American Identity, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page...
(1956) additionally proposed a social-adjustment function, which reflects attitudes that help to identify with those we like and deidentify with those we [dislike].2018, Kay Deaux, Mark Snyder, The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 448:

Antonyms of deidentify

Forms of deidentify

third-person singular present	deidentifies
present participle	deidentifying
past participle	deidentified
past	deidentified
alternative form	de-identify

Origin of deidentify

From de- + identify.

Words formed from deidentify

deidentification
de-identification

Questions about deidentify

What does deidentify mean?: Deidentify means to remove personal identifying information (PII) from data, sometimes preserving the original identification data separately; to anonymize data (though it may be possible to reidentify via data aggregation and correlation).
How do you use deidentify in a sentence?: You can anonymize or deidentify e-PHI by removing all of these identifiers.
What part of speech is deidentify?: Deidentify is a verb.
How do you pronounce deidentify?: Deidentify is pronounced /ˌdiː.aɪˈdɛnt.ɪf.aɪ/.
What is the past tense of deidentify?: The past tense of deidentify is deidentified.

Words near deidentify in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: deidentify (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “deidentify.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deidentify. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.