How anonymous is your anonymised data?

The question is how anonymous is your data once stripped of ‘personal identifying information’ (PII) when used by data aggregation companies for analysis. PII can include name, postcode, etc. I made a couple of blog posts in 2008 concerning this. According to a study led by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, previously anonymised data were able to be correlated again from patient prescription records rending the anonymising process ineffective and a threat to patient privacy.

Half a million dollars awarded for healthcare privacy research in US

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $538,595 to the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research to support a two-year project titled “Protecting Privacy in Health Research.”

The group specifically intends to address the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) “Privacy Rule,” which they contend falls short of adequately protecting privacy, yet impedes medical research by placing unreasonable burdens upon life scientists. Full article here.