Privacy could be improved if data was allowed to fade from websites, research has suggested this week.
A researcher from Holland, Dr Harold van Heerde, said in an article by BBC News, that gradually exchanging other specifics for more universal information, would safeguard against information leaks.
Dr van der Heerde, from the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, explained he had investigated ways of altering how databases could hold and handle information about customers and system users.
He said that all too often, organisations become convinced that keeping data is a good idea because it may be of use in the future.
Dr van Heerde suggested site users would more readily give up data if a website had a strategy to decay data, over certain period of time.
