DICOM Standard Browser

Content encryption may require that the content (the DICOM Data Set) be padded to a multiple of some block size. This shall be performed according to the Content-encryption Process defined in IETF STD 70 [RFC5652].

Any Standard or Private Transfer Syntax may be specified in Encrypted Content Transfer Syntax UID (0400,0510) unless encoding is performed in accordance with an Attribute Confidentiality Profile that specifies additional restrictions. In general, an application entity decoding the Encrypted Attributes Sequence may not assume any particular Transfer Syntax or set of Transfer Syntaxes to be used with Encrypted Content Transfer Syntax UID (0400,0510).

For certain applications it might be necessary to "blacken" (remove) identifying information that is burned in to the image pixel data. The Encrypted Attributes Data Set does not specify a means of restoring the original image information without the complete image pixel data being encoded inside the Modified Attributes Sequence (0400,0550). If access to the original, unmodified pixel data is required and the image pixel data cannot be replicated inside the Modified Attributes Sequence (0400,0550) due to resource considerations, the SOP Instance UID may be used to locate the original SOP Instance from which the de-identified version was derived.

There is no guarantee that the original SOP Instance can be reconstructed from the data in Encrypted Content. If access to the original data is required, the (de-encrypted) UIDs may be used to locate the original SOP Instance from which the de-identified version was derived.