Information may often be acquired in the course of business having private, identifier data that can bias or directly associated information to a person. For example, hospitals and other medical facilities (e.g., imaging centers, cardiology treatment centers, emergency rooms, surgical suites, etc.) include many medical equipment systems, some operable to create an image file having image data combined or integrated with identifier data of a person associated with the acquired image data. Such image files are then utilized by the hospital or medical setting to deliver healthcare to the person. In many instances, there is a need for a secondary re-use of the image data in the image file, such as in clinical trials, teaching instruction, or for publication. In addition to privacy concerns, there can also be proprietary concerns with secondary re-use of information involving communication to an external medium for viewing or storage.
A problem with the secondary re-use of certain information files include privacy concerns for the identifier data included in the information files being viewed or stored on an outside media. There is a need to automatically de-identify information having privacy or proprietary concerns prior to external viewing or external storage of the information.
The above-mentioned problem can be addressed by the subject matter described herein in the following description.