DICOM Anonymization

DICOM Anonymization Levels

DICOM files store lots of protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII) by default. This is great for radiologists, but bad for researchers. Any PHI/PII left in your DICOM files when sharing them with collaborators could be a big issue for you. Your IRB might shut down your project, shoot you into space, who knows. Make sure your data is anonymized, and anonymized in the way that your IRB wants.

Always anonymize your data before sharing!

NiDB offers 3 ways to export, and otherwise handle, DICOM data which are described below

Original - This means there is no anonymization at all. All DICOM tags in the original file will be retained. No tags are added, removed, or changed.

Anonymize - This is the default anonymization method, where most obvious PHI/PII is removed, such as name, DOB, etc. However, dates and locations are retained. The following tags are anonymized

• 0008,0090 ReferringPhysiciansName

• 0008,1050 PerformingPhysiciansName

• 0008,1070 OperatorsName

• 0010,0010 PatientName

• 0010,0030 PatientBirthDate

Anonymize Full - This method removes all PHI/PII, but also removes identifiers that are used by NiDB to accurately archive data by subject/study/series. If most of the tags used to uniquely identify data are removed... it's hard to group the DICOM files into series. So be aware that full anonymization might make it hard to archive the data later on.

• 0008,0090 ReferringPhysiciansName

• 0008,1050 PerformingPhysiciansName

• 0008,1070 OperatorsName

• 0010,0010 PatientName

• 0010,0030 PatientBirthDate

• 0008,0080 InstitutionName

• 0008,0081 InstitutionAddress

• 0008,1010 StationName

• 0008,1030 StudyDescription

• 0008,0020 StudyDate

• 0008,0021 SeriesDate

• 0008,0022 AcquisitionDate

• 0008,0023 ContentDate

• 0008,0030 StudyTime

• 0008,0031 SeriesTime

• 0008,0032 AcquisitionTime

• 0008,0033 ContentTime

• 0010,0020 PatientID

• 0010,1030 PatientWeight