The Data Science Campus (DSC) has released an experimental toolkit for privacy preserving record linkage.
It said it has taken the step to help organisations take a secure and ethical approach to linking datasets for analysis and improving statistics.
The toolkit consists of an open source codebase and scripts to set up a secure cloud environment and user interface to conduct the linking, along with tutorials on how it can be used. It is available on GitHub for testing and feedback.
It also includes features to make the process of matching more automatic by providing reasonable defaults for data processing and matching thresholds. These make it possible to match data in a secure enclave or another ‘eyes off’ setting.
Two organisations could encrypt their data and send it to a secure third party cloud enclave, which then sends an attestation message to the key providers for each to unlock the data. The enclave’s own in-memory encryption keeps it encrypted through the matching process, then encrypts the result before sending it back to bother organisations.
Adapt and assure
DSC – which operates within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – emphasised that the toolkit is currently in its proof of concept phase and advised organisations to adapt and independently assure any implementations of the methods involved.
A DSC blogpost said: “We are sharing this toolkit as a call to action for the wider community to collaborate, to develop privacy preserving record linkage methods and unlock their benefits.”
It added that, although the toolkit is currently being tested on small to medium sized datasets, it is designed to be scalable.
