Can Novices to Geospatial Technology Compromise Spatial Confidentiality?

This article evaluates the degree to which reverse address-matching (i.e., geospatial techniques that include scanning, geo-rectifying, and digitizing) would allow to recover personal data attached to the location of somebody’s residence from a map. Preliminary research results demonstrate that only after a few hours of instruction, novices to geospatial technology possess sufficient knowledge to perform successful reverse address-matching. A second finding is that the probability of somebody’s confidentiality being revealed through reverse address-matching varies across space and changes from neighborhood to neighborhood.