Health information is considered de-identified, if it cannot be used to identify an individual. Other terms for de-identified health information are:

• Anonymous,
• Aggregated,
• and Scrubbed.

The Privacy Regulation details the specific individual information which needs to be removed from PHI for it to qualify as de-identified.

When PHI is de-identified, it is no longer considered protected.

De-identified health information should be used whenever individual patient identification is unnecessary.