At a time when privacy and data security are of increasing importance, the need for technologies that protect individuals' sensitive information has become essential. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain data quality to enable accurate analysis and decision-making. Pseudonymization is emerging as a solution that balances these needs, and MediVox has recently launched an advanced service that addresses this.

MediVox's Pseudonymization service

MediVox has introduced a REST API-based service that aims to protect personal data through pseudonymization. The service works by:

• Identifying personal identifiers: Analyze submitted text to find information that can identify individuals, such as names, dates of birth, phone numbers and place names.
• Replace the information: Replace identifying data with generated pseudonyms, while retaining key attributes such as gender and year of birth to maintain context.
• Rollback of data: Return the pseudonymized text along with a key table that enables recovery of original information after processing.

This approach ensures that data can be processed without the risk of privacy breaches, while preserving the necessary context for accurate analysis.

The difference between Anonymization and Pseudonymization

It is important to distinguish between anonymization and pseudonymization:

• Anonymization: Permanently removes all identifying information, which can limit data quality and reduce its usefulness in analytics. For example, the patient's name can be replaced with "the patient", and details such as date of birth and gender removed entirely.
• Pseudonymization: Replaces identifying information with pseudonyms, but retains important attributes such as gender and year of birth. This maintains context, which is crucial for analytics and decision-making, especially in medical research and treatment.

Benefits of Pseudonymization in Data Processing

The implementation of pseudonymization technology, such as that from MediVox, offers several advantages:

• Improved privacy: Reduces the risk of unauthorized identification of individuals in datasets.
• Preservation of data quality: Maintains the necessary context for analysis, which is essential for accurate results.
• Enabling collaboration: Allows sharing and processing of data across organizations and borders without compromising privacy.
• Compliance with regulations: Helping organizations comply with data protection laws and regulations, such as GDPR in Europe.

MediVox's Approach to Secure Data Processing

MediVox places great emphasis on security in its pseudonymization service:

• Secure processing: Data is analyzed and pseudonymized in real time, and original data is deleted immediately after processing.
• Local data storage: All data is processed in MediVox's Norwegian data center, with the option of local solutions (on-premises) to ensure that sensitive data never leaves the customer's environment.

Conclusion

Pseudonymization represents a critical technology in today's data-driven world, where the need to protect personal data must be balanced with the requirement for high data quality. MediVox's new service offers a robust solution that enables secure and efficient data processing and facilitates advanced analytics without compromising privacy.