Since an intrusion upon one's right to privacy as well as a violation of one's right to publicity both require that the subject is identifiable, disguising the subject so that she is not recognizable is a defense to lawsuits based on either or both claims. However, whether or not the subject is no longer recognizable will be a question for trial and you will have to do more than merely change a person's name.

For example, in Ruzicka v. Conde Nast Publications, Inc., a federal appellate court held that where an attorney provided information conditioned on anonymity, merely changing her name but still identifying her as a “Minneapolis attorney” who helped draft the state's law criminalizing therapist- patient sex was specific enough to make her recognizable and the defendant was liable. Another example is the “Finch” family from Augusten Burrough's memoir Running with Scissors who claimed they were easily identifiable as the Turcottes for a number of reasons including the fact that anyone who knew Burroughs knew he had spent part of his youth with Dr. Turcotte and his family. Nor did it help that Burroughs identified them in subsequent interviews.

While you need not go so far as to make the subject unrecognizable to himself or to individuals who are closely involved with the subject and the information you are providing, you need to be confident that your readers cannot ascertain the subject's identity. Besides the name, features you might consider altering are occupation, physical characteristics, geographic location, and marital status.