Focused personal identifying information redaction

• US 9,892,278 B2
• Filed: 11/14/2012
• Issued: 02/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Avrahami, Shlomit, Fox, Joshua, Kosharovsky, Yuri, Pelts, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Bloomquist, Keith
• Application Number:
  US13/676,712
• Publication Number:
  US 20140136941A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,917 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6254 by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2117 User registration

Abstract

Personal information is retrieved from at least one data source and personal information associated with a first individual is identified. A document is generated that is a version of a first document, wherein the personal information associated with the first individual cannot be discerned.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one computing processor; and

a computer-readable storage media connected to the at least one computing processor, wherein the computer-readable storage media has stored thereon an information redacting program for controlling the at least one computing processor, and wherein the at least one computing processor is operative with the program to execute the program to;

in response to a start of operations to redact information, identify personally identifiable information for an individual by searching multiple data sources for personal information about the individual, wherein the personal information includes at least one of location, contacts, and other personally identifiable information for the individual;

determining whether a resource consumption ratio satisfies a pre-configured value while identifying personally identifiable information for the individual; and

in response to determining that the resource consumption ratio satisfies the pre-configured value, stopping the at least one computing processor from continuing to identify the personally identifiable information and proceed to generate a second document from a first document wherein the personally identifiable information within the first document is redacted from the second document.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one computing processor is further operative with the program to execute the program to:

determine a variant of any of the personally identifiable information associated with the individual, and

include the variant in the personally identifiable information associated with the individual.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the identify personally identifiable information comprises identifying by an entity analysis technique.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one computing processor is further operative with the program to execute the program to locate within the first document any of the personally identifiable information associated with the individual.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the individual comprises a first individual, wherein generating the second document comprises retaining within the second document personally identifiable information associated with a second individual.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the individual comprises a first individual, wherein the first document includes the personally identifiable information associated with the first individual and personally identifiable information associated with a second individual, wherein the personally identifiable information associated with the first individual shares at least one data type with the personally identifiable information associated with the second individual.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the searching the multiple data sources comprises gathering personally identifiable information for the individual from database records in a plurality of databases.

8. A computer program product for redacting individual-related information in a first computer-readable document, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium; and

computer-readable program code embodied in the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable program code is configured to cause at least one computing processor to;

in response to a start of operations to redact information, identify personally identifiable information for an individual by searching multiple data sources for personal information about the individual, wherein the personal information includes at least one of location, contacts, and other personally identifiable information for the individual;

determining whether a resource consumption ratio satisfies a pre-configured value while identifying personally identifiable information for the individual; and

in response to determining that the resource consumption ratio satisfies the pre-configured value, stopping the at least one computing processor from continuing to identify the personally identifiable information and proceed to generate a second document from a first document wherein the personally identifiable information within the first document is redacted from the second document.

9. The computer program product according to claim 8 wherein the computer-readable program code is configured to cause the at least one computing processor to:

determine a variant of any of the personal information associated with the individual, and

include the variant in the personally identifiable information associated with the individual.

10. The computer program product according to claim 8 wherein the identify the personally identifiable information comprises identifying by an entity analysis technique.

11. The computer program product according to claim 8 wherein the computer-readable program code is configured to cause the at least one computing processor to locate within the first document any of the personally identifiable information associated with the individual.

12. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein the individual comprises a first individual, wherein the computer-readable program code is configured to cause the at least one computing processor to retain within the second document personally identifiable information associated with a second individual.

13. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein the individual comprises a first individual, wherein the first document includes the personally identifiable information associated with the first individual and personally identifiable information associated with a second individual, wherein the personally identifiable information associated with the first individual shares at least one data type with the personally identifiable information associated with the second individual.

14. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the identifying the personally identifiable information comprises:

using personally identifiable information from one of the data sources as a linking basis to find additional personally identifiable information for the individual in another of the data sources.

15. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the searching the multiple data sources comprises gathering personally identifiable information for the individual from database records in a plurality of databases.