OPPRL is the abbreviation referring to the Open Privacy Preserving Record Linkage protocol. It is an open protocol for tokenization that allows organizations to exchange and link datasets in a safe manner that does not require the sharing of identifying attributes. All implementations of the OPPRL protocol are interoperable.

Carduus is the canonical implementation of the OPPRL protocol. It is open source, portable, and scalable. Carduus achieves this by being implemented in Python using Apache Spark.

Carduus enhances structured datasets with encrypted tokens that can be used in place of PII or other identifiers. After tokenizing a dataset users often choose to drop any sensitive attributes that should not be shared with recipients.

Please see our detailed documentation located here.

No, tokenization is not the same thing as de-Identification. The two methods of de-identification allowed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are called "Safe Harbor" and "Expert Determination".

Tokenization is often considered the first step of both de-identification methods, however federal regulations require additional transforming and evaluation of data for it to be considered de-identified, regardless of the de-identification method.

Carduus and OPPRL solve the problems of tokenization and record linkage. Spindle Health provides additional products and services for data de-identification via Expert Determination. For more information, please contact us.

Spindle Health is happy to help organizations with Carduus and OPPRL tokenization Implementations. We are here to support your organization. If you are new to tokenization, we strongly encourage you to reach out and meet us.

Carduus is free open source software (FOSS) that is managed publically on Github in collaboration with the community of users and contributors.

The license for Carduus is available on Github. Carduss is OSS and does not require a customized license for each user.

If you have any feedback — questions, bug reports, usability concerns, or proposals for improvements — please open an issue or a discussion on Github. For more information see the Carduus contributing guide.