Delayed Publication

Data released in real time can compromise the security of individuals or of an organisation. For instance, it could be used to track a person in real time or to show when a house is empty, or to show when capacity is reached in a network. This can allow those with harmful intent to follow an individual or organisations activity in real time, and find opportune moments to inflict harm.

Delaying publication of data - for instance by six months or a year - can help reduce the likelihood of harm occurring. It is no longer possible for someone with harmful intentions to monitor real time actual activity and take action based upon that.

This technique may not be used independently as it is possible to make inferences about individuals or organisations activity. Patterns can be identified, such as when a house is likely to be empty, and could be used speculatively. Therefore, further data manipulations may be applied to make the data even more secure.

Key Considerations and risks

Time delay may remove value for data re-users

Delaying data publication may remove some of the value of the data for re-users. Engage with your stakeholder community to understand if this might be the case, or if using alternative mitigation techniques, such as access control and anonymisation may be more appropriate.

May not add significant security

As mentioned above, those with hostile intentions could try to infer current patterns from historic behaviour. If this approach is used, it is likely to be used in combination with others such as access control or anonymisation.