A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Authors

  • Iyiola E. Olatunji
  • Jens Rauch
  • Matthias Katzensteiner
  • Megha Khosla

Research Organisations

External Research Organisations

  • Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences
  • University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover (HsH)
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Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)538-555
Number of pages18
JournalBig data
Volume12
Issue number6
Early online date11 Dec 2024
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

Abstract

Mining health data can lead to faster medical decisions, improvement in the quality of treatment, disease prevention, and reduced cost, and it drives innovative solutions within the healthcare sector. However, health data are highly sensitive and subject to regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, which aims to ensure patient's privacy. Anonymization or removal of patient identifiable information, although the most conventional way, is the first important step to adhere to the regulations and incorporate privacy concerns. In this article, we review the existing anonymization techniques and their applicability to various types (relational and graph based) of health data. Besides, we provide an overview of possible attacks on anonymized data. We illustrate via a reconstruction attack that anonymization, although necessary, is not sufficient to address patient privacy and discuss methods for protecting against such attacks. Finally, we discuss tools that can be used to achieve anonymization.

Keywords

    anonymization, attacks, healthcare data, privacy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cite this

A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data. / Olatunji, Iyiola E.; Rauch, Jens; Katzensteiner, Matthias et al.
In: Big data, Vol. 12, No. 6, 12.2024, p. 538-555.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Olatunji, IE, Rauch, J, Katzensteiner, M & Khosla, M 2024, 'A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data', Big data, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 538-555. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2104.06523, https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2021.0169
Olatunji, I. E., Rauch, J., Katzensteiner, M., & Khosla, M. (2024). A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data. Big data, 12(6), 538-555. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2104.06523, https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2021.0169
Olatunji IE, Rauch J, Katzensteiner M, Khosla M. A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data. Big data. 2024 Dec;12(6):538-555. Epub 2024 Dec 11. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2104.06523, 10.1089/big.2021.0169
Olatunji, Iyiola E. ; Rauch, Jens ; Katzensteiner, Matthias et al. / A Review of Anonymization for Healthcare Data. In: Big data. 2024 ; Vol. 12, No. 6. pp. 538-555.
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