I'm not up on HIPPA and I am not a lawyer. Years ago I created a system for anonymizing address data that passed muster with the FCC and US Census bureau. In a nutshell we had a third party create a unique hash to identify the record, and geocode to the US Census block group. We never handled let alone stored the name or address ourselves. We had an independent auditor audit our outsource party and our datasets. Block group is the US Census standard for protecting privacy - it really depends on what other data you retain though as to being able to reconstruct identity.
Cheers! -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Simon Spero Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 2:38 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Anonymizing address data This book might be useful (it's a year old) Anonymizing Health Data <http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029229.do> Case Studies and Methods to Get You Started By Khaled El Emam, Luk Arbuckle <http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029229.do#tab_03_0> Publisher: O'Reilly Media Released: December 2013 Pages: 212 On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Kyle Banerjee <kyle.baner...@gmail.com> wrote: > HIPPA compliant data cannot include personally identifiable information, a > category which includes address. The "safe harbor" approach where > geographic subdivisions smaller than states cannot be used frequently > renders data useless. > > The "expert determination" method is always an option and precompiling can > work in certain cases, but I was wondering what other methods people have > successfully employed? Thanks, > > kyle >
