A secure architecture for the pseudonymization of medical data

Abstract

As aging and very expensive programs put more pressure on health and social care systems, an increase in the need for electronic healthcare records can be observed, because they promise massive savings and better clinical quality. However, patients and commissioners for data protection have legitimate concerns about the privacy and confidentiality of the stored data. Although the concept of pseudonymization allows an association with a patient only under specified and controlled circumstances, existing approaches have major vulnerabilities. This paper provides a new architecture for the pseudonymization of medical data that combines primary and secondary use in one system and thus provides a solution to vulnerabilities of existing approaches