Anonymizing Healthcare Records: A Study of Privacy Preserving Data Publishing Techniques

The advancements in information technology are pushing beyond the normal boundaries of the healthcare organizations to generate patient data through various means such as smart wearable gadgets, home monitoring devices, telehealth etc. The amount of patient information generated can be utilized for the well-being of the community, medical diagnosis, and other health-related discoveries. All contemporary health governing agencies and standards including ISO 22600-1:2014, Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) and European Data Protection Act requires patient consent in order to share the medical data to pharmaceutical companies, insurance agencies, and research organizations. Privacy Preserving Data Publishing (PPDP) techniques are widely applied in anonymizing the patient data before publishing the patient information to these entities. This paper attempts to present a study on the commonly applied PPDP techniques for anonymizing health records and discusses the most recent trends in the era of big data. This research also supplements some input on the comparative analysis of these techniques.