Focused personal identifying information redaction

• US 9,904,798 B2
• Filed: 03/27/2014
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• 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:
  US14/228,246
• Publication Number:
  US 20140317758A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,433 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 method for redacting information in a first document, comprising:

in response to a start of operations to redact information, identifying, by a computing processor, 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 computing processor from continuing to identify the personally identifiable information and proceed to generating, by the computing processor, a second document from a first document wherein the personally identifiable information within the first document is redacted from the second document.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identifying further comprises:

determining a variant of any of the personal information associated with the individual; and

including the variant in the personal information associated with the individual.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises identifying by an entity analysis technique.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the generating comprises locating within the first document any of the personal information associated with the individual.

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

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

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying and creating are embodied in any of

a) computer hardware, and

b) computer software embodied in a computer-readable storage medium.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the resource consumption ratio satisfies the pre-configured value comprises:

determining the resource consumption ratio as a ratio of a number of new personally identifiable information instances for a time period to resource consumption in the time period, wherein the resource consumption ratio is satisfied if the resource consumption ratio is below the pre-configured value.