Confidential handling of data in secondary data research - Approaches to solving data concentration and data security problems

In order to implement general data protection requirements and internationa lly recognised ethical requirements, research with personal health and soci al data demands a specific framework for the secure handling of confidentia l data. In the process of transferring data from the health service provide rs to the place where they are analysed, an important role is played by a s o-called trust centre, responsible for psuedonymisation of personal and ins titutional identifiers. An undesirable concentration of data in the trust c entre can be avoided by early separation of data in the data transfer insti tution: the trust centre receives only the identifier to be pseudonymised, while the health provision data are sent direct to the analysing institutio n, where they can be matched with the pseudonyms from the trust centre, wit h the help of a unique case number. The possibility of reidentification, wh ich exists mainly in large (pseudonymised) data sets, can be reduced by use of an appropriate pseudonymisation process (e. g. insuree-based pseudonymi sation by health service providers for sampling of insurees). The measures described here are suitable for protecting confidentiality and for further improving data security in the handling of confidential personal and instit utional data.