Earlier, even prior to the digitalization of healthcare records, it was still easier to keep the information secure and private. Records were in the physical form and could be protected in many ways. Now that people can pull up their entire health histories with the press of a few buttons, things are very different. With the information now being stored and processed online, the threat and risk exposures are equally high. So, to address such threats the U.S.

HIPAA Security Rules and Privacy Rules were established to secure the Protected Health Information (PHI) data of patients that healthcare organizations collect, process, and/or transmit. The regulation has identified 18 HIPAA Identifiers that are considered as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) which is a part of the PHI data.