De-identifying EDF and EDF+ files using edf-anonymize

Name

edf-anonymize - anonymize (de-identify) an EDF or EDF+ file

Synopsis

edf-anonymize input output [ sname sid sdate ]

Description

edf-anonymize reads an EDF or EDF+ file (input), writing an anonymized copy of it as output.

Anonymization of an EDF or EDF+ file requires removal of the patient name and id, and all elements of the recording date other than the year. These can be replaced with surrogate data, and this is recommended since some software intended to read EDF or EDF+ files may reject inputs in which the fields for name, id, and recording date are empty.

By default, however, if sname, sid, and sdate are omitted, edf-anonymize replaces the name and id with space (blank) characters, and it replaces the recording day and month with '01.01' (1 January) without altering the recording year.

Run the program from the command line without any arguments to obtain a brief synopsis of its use.

Examples

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf

This copies the contents of foo.edf to a new file called anonymous.edf, emptying the patient name and id fields and setting the date to 01.01 without altering the recording year.

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent"

As above, but the patient's name is replaced by Arthur Dent. The quotation marks are needed if the name contains any spaces, as in this example. Names longer than 80 characters are truncated.

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent" 42

As above, but the patient id is replaced by 42. Ids longer than 80 characters are truncated.

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent" 42 03.04.05

As above, but the date is replaced by 03.04.05 (i.e, 3 April 2005).

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent" 42 30.11

As above, but the day and month are replaced by 30.11 (30 November), without altering the recording year.

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent" 42 +12345

As above, but the recording date is shifted 12345 days into the future.

edf-anonymize foo.edf anonymous.edf "Arthur Dent" 42 +-5678

As above, but the recording date is shifted -5678 days into the past.

Author

George B. Moody (george@mit.edu)

Source

http://www.physionet.org/physiotools/edf-anonymize/edf-anonymize.c