micro1 PII transformation: what its page and forum talk say
The short answer
micro1's data partnerships page says personal information "is removed when relevant." micro1's David Revland said in an undated talk that each name gets one stand-in across tools. Ask which your contract means.
micro1's data partnerships page says personally identifiable information "is removed when relevant," and that companies can review representative samples before use.
Its CFO said in an undated recorded forum talk that the value of company data in the micro1 data partnership sits in the workflow. David Revland, who works on human data at micro1, said a workflow needs consistent people in it.
What is the difference between transformation and redaction?
Redaction blanks a name. Transformation replaces it with a stand-in and keeps the replacement the same everywhere.
Revland's example of a consistent stand-in in Slack and Google Workspace keeps the role and the cross-tool trail.
Why can a company not scrub first?
micro1 staff said in an undated recorded forum talk that micro1 must transform the data itself, because blanking names first would destroy the trail it needs.
micro1's CFO said in the same talk that every corpus goes through a scrubbing step, sampled at several points before use.
Do micro1's descriptions match?
They describe the same step in different words, and all three are micro1 (self-reported).
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| micro1 data partnerships page | "Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant." |
| Revland (micro1), undated recorded forum talk | A consistent stand-in replaces each name across tools, in place of redaction. |
| A micro1 referral partner, micro1 video (about 13:27) | Anonymization of the whole data set, "state-of-the-art," removing personal information, phone numbers, emails and names. |
Removal and a swap leave different data behind. Ask which one the contract says, and who holds any name mapping.
Is a name swapped by PII transformation still personal data under UK law?
Possibly. The UK Information Commissioner's Office says pseudonymised data is personal data in the hands of someone who holds the additional information (ICO guidance). That is UK guidance, and your state's law may differ.
In the Spirit Airlines sale, a union objected to "referential integrity" for the same reason, since links between records can let someone rebuild who is who (Time).
Who does the transforming?
In the Spirit case, the court's ombudsman noted on 5 Oct 2026 that micro1 proposed to de-identify the data itself and not use an independent party (Doc 1684). That is the same question you can ask micro1 about your corpus. See the Spirit page.
What should you ask micro1?
- Who holds the mapping between real and stand-in names, and for how long?
- Who checks the samples, and at which points?
- What happens to the mapping when the engagement ends?
The re-identification page and the de-identification page explain the limits. Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Apply to micro1's data partnership (paid link)micro1's own data-partnerships pagePaid link. How we are paid
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
