Hiding privacy and clinical information in medical images using QR code

This study aims to hide patient's privacy details of DICOM files using the QR code images with the same size using steganographic technique. The proposed method is based on the properties of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) of the DICOM images to embed a QR code image. The proposed approach includes two main parts: the embedding of data and the extraction procedure. Moreover, the embedded QR code will be reconstructed blindly from the Stego DICOM without the presence of the original DICOM file. The performances of proposed approach were tested using TCIA COVID-19 Dataset and the terms of the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), the Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and the Bit Error Rate (BER) values. The simulation results achieved high PSNR values ranged between 63.47 dB and 81.97 dB after the embedding procedure by using a QR code image within the DICOM image of the same size.