Protecting Privacy in Location Data: Louise Sieg’s Journey from UCL to the OECD

Location data is more in demand than ever, but as usage grows, so do concerns around privacy and access. Louise Sieg, who recently completed her PhD with us, focused her research on tackling these issues at the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC).  

“Location data is a rapidly growing market with more and more demand for the datasets,” she explains. “We identified that key questions pertaining to data protection and privacy, as well as data access, needed to be tackled sooner rather than later in this rapidly evolving context.” 

Her research explored how bespoke regionalisation can help protect privacy while maintaining data quality.  “The thesis demonstrated that bespoke regionalisation helps mitigate the effects of aggregation on output datasets, promoting both an ethical use of sensitive datasets and the preservation of data integrity and granularity.”  

By refining the way datasets are structured, her research aimed to strike a balance between privacy protection and the need for detailed research insights. 

Reflecting on her viva, Louise describes it as a surprisingly positive experience. “Advice provided online (and by UCL) mostly centres around enjoying the viva and treating it as a unique opportunity to discuss with interesting (and interested) scholars in the field. I’m almost surprised at how true this was.”  

After months of writing, the discussion left her feeling encouraged. “The viva helped me leave feeling like the research was of interest to at least my two examiners and me!” 

Now working as a GIS Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, she sees clear links between her PhD training and her current role. “Both are very international settings! The PhD work—researching, developing methodologies, writing and presenting papers—transfers very smoothly to my OECD role.” 

For future PhD candidates, she strongly encourages publishing early. “Every time I managed to discuss my work with different scholars at conferences or through paper reviews, it was greatly improved upon, and the experience left me with a larger sense of purpose.” 

Looking ahead, she is excited to continue working in an interdisciplinary and international environment. “I am delighted to have the chance to use my PhD field as part of my career, and to continue playing with GIS data and toolkits.”