How MDI and Arkansas ARData Are Testing Linkja for Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage

In June 2025, the Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services partnered with Medical Research Analytics and Informatics Alliance (MRAIA) and Georgetown’s Massive Data Institute (MDI) to pilot an open-source, privacy-preserving record linkage tool. This tool, called Linkja, was tested on synthetic SLDS data and demonstrated secure cross-agency matching without ever exposing PII.

👉 Download pilot report here
👉 Visit MDI PETs main site

Linking data across siloed state systems typically exposes personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, Social Security Numbers, Date of Births, raising breach risks and privacy concerns. PPRL “tokenizes” sensitive fields so records can be matched securely without sharing raw PII, preserving both utility and privacy.

By comparing the match rates from the PPRL with Arkansas’s traditional record linkage process, this pilot demonstrated the potential for PPRL tools to replace instances of direct PII sharing across multiple agency servers. The PPRL tool, Linkja, offers ten rules–or linkage algorithms–to choose from, making it adaptable to agencies’ varying data schemas and use cases.