Quick Answer
The answer is Amazon Comprehend Medical, the essential AWS service for PHI de-identification for HIPAA compliance when preparing medical text for generative AI. This service uses specialized natural language processing to detect and redact protected health information—such as patient names, dates, and medical record numbers—from unstructured clinical notes before the data reaches a foundation model, directly addressing the privacy requirements of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. On the AWS Certified AI Practitioner AIF-C01 exam, this question tests your ability to distinguish between general NLP services like Amazon Comprehend and the healthcare-specific variant, Amazon Comprehend Medical, which is the only one with built-in PHI entity detection and redaction. A common trap is choosing Amazon Comprehend or Amazon Textract, but remember: Comprehend Medical is purpose-built for clinical data and HIPAA compliance. Memory tip: think “Medical = Medical data de-identification,” while plain Comprehend handles general text.
This AIF-C01 practice question tests your understanding of fundamentals of generative ai. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A team is deploying a generative AI model for medical report generation. They must ensure patient data privacy and comply with HIPAA. Which AWS service feature is essential for de-identifying protected health information (PHI) before sending data to a foundation model?
AWS CloudHSM
Why wrong: CloudHSM is a hardware security module, not for de-identification.
Amazon Comprehend Medical
Comprehend Medical provides PHI detection and de-identification.
Amazon Macie
Why wrong: Macie discovers sensitive data but does not de-identify.
AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)
Why wrong: KMS manages encryption keys, not de-identification.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon Comprehend Medical
Amazon Comprehend Medical is the correct service because it is specifically designed to extract and de-identify protected health information (PHI) from unstructured medical text using natural language processing (NLP). It can detect entities such as patient names, dates, and medical record numbers, and then redact or replace them before the data is sent to a foundation model, ensuring HIPAA compliance.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS CloudHSM
Why it's wrong here
CloudHSM is a hardware security module, not for de-identification.
Amazon Comprehend Medical
Why this is correct
Comprehend Medical provides PHI detection and de-identification.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon Macie
Why it's wrong here
Macie discovers sensitive data but does not de-identify.
AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)
Why it's wrong here
KMS manages encryption keys, not de-identification.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates confuse general data protection services like Macie or encryption services like KMS with the specialized PHI de-identification capability of Amazon Comprehend Medical, assuming any security service can handle HIPAA compliance for generative AI workflows.
Detailed technical explanation
Amazon Comprehend Medical uses a specialized NLP model trained on medical ontologies like ICD-10-CM and RxNorm to identify PHI entities such as NAME, DATE, AGE, MEDICAL_RECORD_NUMBER, and ZIP_CODE. Its de-identification API can either redact entities by replacing them with placeholder labels (e.g., [NAME]) or mask them with asterisks, and it supports both batch and real-time processing, which is critical for high-throughput medical report generation pipelines.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Fundamentals of Generative AI — This question tests Fundamentals of Generative AI — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon Comprehend Medical — Amazon Comprehend Medical is the correct service because it is specifically designed to extract and de-identify protected health information (PHI) from unstructured medical text using natural language processing (NLP). It can detect entities such as patient names, dates, and medical record numbers, and then redact or replace them before the data is sent to a foundation model, ensuring HIPAA compliance.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 25, 2026
This AIF-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AIF-C01 exam.
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