ArticleApplied clinical informatics2012
The false security of blind dates: chrononymization's lack of impact on data privacy of laboratory data.
Article in Applied clinical informatics, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Algorithms to anonymize structured medical and healthcare data: A systematic review.Frontiers in bioinformatics · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- The Detection of Date Shifting in Real-World Data.Applied clinical informatics · 2023Article
- Developing a systematic approach to assessing data quality in secondary use of clinical data based on intended use.Learning health systems · 2022Article
- Broadening horizons: the case for capturing function and the role of health informatics in its use.BMC public health · 2019Article
- Use and Understanding of Anonymization and De-Identification in the Biomedical Literature: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- Grappling with the Future Use of Big Data for Translational Medicine and Clinical Care.Yearbook of medical informatics · 2017Article
- Classifying Clinical Trial Eligibility Criteria to Facilitate Phased Cohort Identification Using Clinical Data Repositories.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2017Article
- Preserving temporal relations in clinical data while maintaining privacy.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2016Article
- The National Institutes of Health's Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS): design, contents, functionality and experience to date.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe reuse of clinical data for research purposes requires methods for the protection of personal privacy. One general approach is the removal of personal identifiers from the data. A frequent part of this anonymization process is the removal of times and dates, which we refer to as "chrononymization." While this step can make the association with identified data (such as public information or a small sample of patient information) more difficult, it comes at a cost to the usefulness of the data for research.
objectivesWe sought to determine whether removal of dates from common laboratory test panels offers any advantage in protecting such data from re-identification.
methodsWe obtained a set of results for 5.9 million laboratory panels from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS), selected a random set of 20,000 panels from the larger source sets, and then identified all matches between the sets.
resultsWe found that while removal of dates could hinder the re-identification of a single test result, such removal had almost no effect when entire panels were used.
conclusionsOur results suggest that reliance on chrononymization provides a false sense of security for the protection of laboratory test results. As a result of this study, the NIH has chosen to rely on policy solutions, such as strong data use agreements, rather than removal of dates when reusing clinical data for research purposes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.