privacyR NEWS

Version 1.0.1 (2025-11-22)

Bug Fixes

• Critical fix: Replaced weak hash function in UUID generation with cryptographic hash (MD5) to prevent duplicate UUIDs for different patients in large datasets
• Added robust hash function for datasets with more than 5 unique values
• Maintains backward compatibility: small datasets (≤5 unique values) use original hash method
• Now handles datasets with 1 million+ records without collisions
• Added digest package as required dependency for robust hashing
• Maintains referential integrity (same input → same UUID) while ensuring uniqueness

Technical Details

• For large datasets (>5 unique values): Uses MD5 hash via digest package
• For small datasets (≤5 unique values): Uses original hash method (backward compatible)
• MD5 collision probability for 1M records: ~10^-15 (negligible)
• All functions using UUIDs (anonymize_id, anonymize_names, anonymize_locations) benefit from this fix

Version 1.0.0 (2024-11-09)

Changes

• Fixed README.md to remove reference to DISCLAIMER file (CRAN compliance)
• Disclaimer text now only in README.md
• First stable release

Version 0.1.1 (2024-11-07)

Changes

• Package renamed from shadowR to privacyR to avoid CRAN name conflict
• Fixed LICENSE format for CRAN compliance
• Updated CDC HIPAA URL reference
• Added DISCLAIMER to .Rbuildignore

Version 0.1.0 (Initial Release)

Features

• Initial release of privacyR package
• anonymize_id() function for anonymizing patient identifiers
• anonymize_names() function for anonymizing patient names
• anonymize_dates() function with shift and round methods
• anonymize_locations() function with remove and generalize methods
• anonymize_dataframe() function for anonymizing entire data frames
• Comprehensive test suite using testthat
• Vignette with detailed examples and best practices
• Full roxygen2 documentation