Re: Database design and confidential data protection

"Diego Berge" <dberge_at_privacy.net> wrote in message news:bp78st$1kng99$1_at_ID-186969.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> How is it done if you had to work on a project (such as modifying and
> existing system) involving confidential data that needs to be protected
> from the developer?
>
> Say, you could be working on a database of medical records, and it must
> be ensured that you must not have access to personal information. I
> suppose one approach would be to replace all attribute descriptions by
> other values, e.g.,
>
> Patient | Disease
> -----------------+--------
> Joe Bloggs | Flu
> Jane Johnson | Cold
> Michael Peterson | Syphilis
>
> turns into
>
> Patient | Disease
> -----------------+--------
> Paris | Green Blue
> Montparnasse | Red
> London | Yellow Green
>
> That's just something that ocurred to me, but how is it actually done?
> Just wondering.

It is usually done with a confidentiality agreement or with simulated data. A production environment will require a confidentiality agreement. Received on Sun Nov 16 2003 - 14:11:18 CET