Watermarking medical images with anonymous patient identification to verify authenticity

Gouenou Coatrieux (1, 2) , Catherine Quantin (3) , Julien Montagner (1, 2) , Maniane Fassa (3) , François André Allaërt (4) , Christian Roux (1, 2)

1 ITI - Département Image et Traitement Information
2 Optimisation Continue des Actions Thérapeutiques par l'Intégration d'Informations Multimodales
3 DIM - Service Biostatistiques et Informatique Médicale (CHU de Dijon)
4 Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health [Montréal]

When dealing with medical image management, there is a need to ensure information authenticity and dependability. Being able to verify the information belongs to the correct patient and is issued from the right source is a major concern. Verification can help to reduce the risk of errors when identifying documents in daily practice or when sending a patient's Electronic Health Record. At the same time, patient privacy issues may appear during the verification process when the verifier accesses patient data without appropriate authorization. In this paper we discuss the combination of watermarking with different identifiers ranging from DICOM standard UID to an Anonymous European Patient Identifier in order to improve medical image protection in terms of authenticity and maintainability.

Mots clés: Watermarking; Unique patient identifier; Authenticity; Maintainability; Medical imaging

Gouenou Coatrieux, Catherine Quantin, Julien Montagner, Maniane Fassa, François André Allaërt, et al.. Watermarking medical images with anonymous patient identification to verify authenticity. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 2008, 136, pp.667-672. ⟨hal-00940410⟩