Implementing globally unique identifier architecture in date collection for a health management study in taiwan aboriginal tribe

Abstract

In present, more and more attention has been put on the effort of protection of personal data and also new encryption technologies are derived. In this article, we introduce a personal information protection technology, global unique identifier (GUID), which is developed by National Institutes of Health U.S. and used for personal health information protection. The GUID is an identifier that allows researchers to associate and share data specific to a study participant without using or exposing personally identifiable information (PII). The GUID is made up of random alphanumeric characters and is not directly generated from PII/Protected Health Information (PHI). It has been approved by the NIH/USA office General Counsel for secure sharing of anonymized database. In our study, we used GUID as key identifier for health data collection from aboriginal tribe in a health promotion project.