What is DICOM anonymization?

We aim to facilitate and guarantee a project's confidentiality and integrity of all data. When creating a new project to host and share data, you will use the below-mentioned anonymization.

Legend

• X - Remove tag.
• Z - Replace with a zero length value, or a non-zero length value that may be a dummy value and consistent with the Value Representations
• D - Replace with a non-zero length value that may be a dummy value and consistent with the Value Representations

Tags

References

1. DICOM anonymizer comparison (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-015-3794-0)
2. HIPAA 18 classes of identifiers to be removed (https://cphs.berkeley.edu/hipaa/hipaa18.html)
3. INCF XNAT Data Store (http://xnat.incf.org/)
4. DICOM supplement 142 - Clinical Trial De-identification Profiles (ftp://medical.nema.org/medical/dicom/final/sup142_ft.pdf)

HIPAA and data privacy compliance

Images include individually identifiable information and other information which is not directly related to a subject's identity per session, but that might assist in recovering the identity. This Protected Health Information (PHI) needs to be removed to protect the subject's privacy, complying with HIPAA rules and other data privacy regulations.

On the other hand, researchers want to keep certain specific information for running detailed analysis and assuring data quality. It is important to be flexible with the requirements depending on the research purpose.

Automatic anonymization 

For our user's convenience, QMENTA provides an anonymization method which is executed automatically when you upload the data. This process anonymizes most information which might assist in recovering a subject's identity.

For example, "Patient birth date" is removed just as is "Country of residence".

We follow industry standards and regulations. For instance, HIPAA has a guidance about what information needs to be removed (link). On the platform, you can browse all DICOM tags to be removed or replaced by a dummy value. 

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