Notification Service De-identifying Sensitive Data on Messaging Bus
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems face difficulties in providing notifications to authorized users while maintaining the protection of sensitive information, especially when multiple users need to receive updates about record changes in a record management system.
Innovation Solution
A notification service that initiates message listening and routing on a messaging bus, using authentication and authorization protocols to ensure only authorized users receive specific notifications, with safeguards to protect protected health information (PHI) by de-identifying sensitive data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If notifications are provided to multiple authorized users about record changes, then user awareness and collaboration are improved, but information security and data privacy protection become more difficult to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different quality treatments to different parts of the notification message. Sensitive information is de-identified or redacted while non-sensitive information is transmitted normally. This allows the notification to be sent to multiple users without exposing sensitive data, resolving the contradiction between notification efficiency and information security.
Solution Approach 2:
The notification service acts as an intermediary between the record management system and authorized users. It receives notifications, processes them to remove or mask sensitive information, and then forwards the sanitized notifications to users. This intermediary function enables secure multi-user notification by mediating the information flow and applying security transformations.
2Loss of information
If sensitive information is included in notifications for completeness, then information accuracy is improved, but data privacy compliance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The notification service applies selective processing to different portions of the notification content. Non-sensitive information is transmitted in full to maintain completeness, while sensitive information is de-identified or redacted to ensure compliance. This local quality approach maintains notification accuracy for necessary information while protecting sensitive data.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts sensitive information from the notification message and removes or masks it before transmission. This extraction process separates sensitive data from non-sensitive data, allowing the notification to remain informative while complying with privacy regulations by taking out the problematic sensitive elements.
3Reliability
If authorization verification is performed for each notification request, then security is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs authorization verification in advance when users are added to notification distributions, rather than verifying authorization for each individual notification request. This preliminary action establishes user permissions upfront, reducing the complexity of real-time authorization checks while maintaining security. The authorization status is cached and reused for subsequent notifications.
Solution Approach 2:
The notification service implements a universal authorization mechanism that handles multiple types of notifications and users through a single authorization framework. This multi-functional approach consolidates security checks into a unified system rather than requiring separate verification logic for each notification type, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining comprehensive security.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for initiating message listening and routing message content to authorized user devices is disclosed. For a second user device to receive notifications regarding records of a first user, the second user device provides information identifying the first user to a notification service. The notification service verifies the identifying information. The notification service initiates one or more listeners to listen for messages flowing over a messaging bus that are relating to the first user. Once a message is identified, at least a portion of the message is used to generate a notification that may be sent to the second user device.