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2026 talk conference

Pseudonymised, anonymised, synthetic: our talk at the Zurich Data Protection Conference 2026

On 24 September 2026, Matthias Templ (FHNW, SwissAnon) spoke at the 5th Zurich Data Protection Conference (5. Zürcher Datenschutztagung) at the Paulus Akademie in Zurich. This year’s theme was “AI in public administration: seize the opportunities, protect the data”. The conference was organised by the ZHAW School of Management and Law together with the Data Protection Commissioner of the Canton of Zurich.

Interest was remarkable: the conference was fully booked, and there was even a waiting list. A waiting list for a data protection conference is almost like queuing for tickets to a football match, and it shows how pressing these questions have become for public administrations.

The talk, Pseudonymisation, anonymisation and synthetic data: what really works with AI?, was aimed at data protection officers, lawyers and public administration. Its main points:

  • Data without names are not yet anonymous data. Pseudonymised data remain personal data, also when they end up in a prompt.
  • Whether data are anonymous depends on the effort a re-identification takes, and agentic AI has pushed that effort down to a few dollars and minutes per person.
  • Anonymisation works when it is measured: a scenario, and a risk figure before and after.
  • Synthetic data are very useful for testing, development and training, but they shift the risk rather than remove it.
  • AI can also help to anonymise, provided the model never sees a data row and a human signs off.

Many thanks to the organisers at ZHAW, Dr. Michael Widmer, who led the conference together with Dr. Dominika Blonski, Data Protection Commissioner of the Canton of Zurich, and Carole Del Degan, who took care of the organisation, for the invitation and a very well-run day.