K-anonymity thresholds

Privacy

Reporting a cell-level metric is only privacy-safe if at least k individuals share that cell/attribute combination; enforcing k only on the cell dimension while ignoring cross-tabulation with other dimensions (age, segment) can still expose small groups.

Detection

Any reporting cut (cell x segment x time) with fewer than k unique individuals, even if the marginal cell total meets k alone.

Mitigation

  • Enforce k-anonymity on every cross-tabulated cut that will be published, not just the top-level cell total
  • Suppress or merge categories in any cut that falls below k

Affected conversions

  • PointH3
  • RasterH3
  • Admin polygonsH3 (weighted crosswalk)