Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:dateCreated
1997-12-17
pubmed:abstractText
We present a computer program named Datafly that maintains anonymity in medical data by automatically generalizing, substituting, and removing information as appropriate without losing many of the details found within the data. Decisions are made at the field and record level at the time of database access, so the approach can be used on the fly in role-based security within an institution, and in batch mode for exporting data from an institution. Often organizations release and receive medical data with all explicit identifiers, such as name, address and phone number, removed in the incorrect belief that patient confidentiality is maintained because the resulting data look anonymous; however, we show the remaining data can often be used to re-identify individuals by linking or matching the data to other databases or by looking at unique characteristics found in the fields and records of the database itself. When these less apparent aspects are taken into account, each released record can be made to ambiguously map to many possible people, providing a level of anonymity determined by the user.
pubmed:grant
pubmed:commentsCorrections
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:issn
1091-8280
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
51-5
pubmed:dateRevised
2009-11-18
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1997
pubmed:articleTitle
Guaranteeing anonymity when sharing medical data, the Datafly System.
pubmed:affiliation
Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S., Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't