A Privacy Preserving Framework for RFID Based Healthcare Systems

RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is anticipated to be a core technology that will be used in many practical applications of our life in near future. It has received considerable attention within the healthcare for almost a decade now. The technology’s promise to efficiently track hospital supplies, medical equipment, medications and patients is an attractive proposition to the healthcare industry. However, the prospect of wide spread use of RFID tags in the healthcare area has also triggered discussions regarding privacy, particularly because RFID data in transit may easily be intercepted and can be send to track its user (owner). In a nutshell, this technology has not really seen its true potential in healthcare industry since privacy concerns raised by the tag bearers are not properly addressed by existing identification techniques. There are two major types of privacy preservation techniques that are required in an RFID based healthcare system—(1) a privacy preserving authentication protocol is required while sensing RFID tags for different identification and monitoring purposes, and (2) a privacy preserving access control mechanism is required to restrict unauthorized access of private information while providing healthcare services using the tag ID. In this paper, we propose a framework (PriSens-HSAC) that makes an effort to address the above mentioned two privacy issues. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first framework to provide increased privacy in RFID based healthcare systems, using RFID authentication along with access control technique

The Serums Tool-Chain:Ensuring Security and Privacy of Medical Data in Smart Patient-Centric Healthcare Systems

Digital technology is permeating all aspects of human society and life. This leads to humans becoming highly dependent on digital devices, including upon digital: assistance, intelligence, and decisions. A major concern of this digital dependence is the lack of human oversight or intervention in many of the ways humans use this technology. This dependence and reliance on digital technology raises concerns in how humans trust such systems, and how to ensure digital technology behaves appropriately. This works considers recent developments and projects that combine digital technology and artificial intelligence with human society. The focus is on critical scenarios where failure of digital technology can lead to significant harm or even death. We explore how to build trust for users of digital technology in such scenarios and considering many different challenges for digital technology. The approaches applied and proposed here address user trust along many dimensions and aim to build collaborative and empowering use of digital technologies in critical aspects of human society

Designing the Health-related Internet of Things: Ethical Principles and Guidelines

The conjunction of wireless computing, ubiquitous Internet access, and the miniaturisation of sensors have opened the door for technological applications that can monitor health and well-being outside of formal healthcare systems. The health-related Internet of Things (H-IoT) increasingly plays a key role in health management by providing real-time tele-monitoring of patients, testing of treatments, actuation of medical devices, and fitness and well-being monitoring. Given its numerous applications and proposed benefits, adoption by medical and social care institutions and consumers may be rapid. However, a host of ethical concerns are also raised that must be addressed. The inherent sensitivity of health-related data being generated and latent risks of Internet-enabled devices pose serious challenges. Users, already in a vulnerable position as patients, face a seemingly impossible task to retain control over their data due to the scale, scope and complexity of systems that create, aggregate, and analyse personal health data. In response, the H-IoT must be designed to be technologically robust and scientifically reliable, while also remaining ethically responsible, trustworthy, and respectful of user rights and interests. To assist developers of the H-IoT, this paper describes nine principles and nine guidelines for ethical design of H-IoT devices and data protocols

A systematic literature review of cloud computing in eHealth

Cloud computing in eHealth is an emerging area for only few years. There needs to identify the state of the art and pinpoint challenges and possible directions for researchers and applications developers. Based on this need, we have conducted a systematic review of cloud computing in eHealth. We searched ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Inspec, ISI Web of Science and Springer as well as relevant open-access journals for relevant articles. A total of 237 studies were first searched, of which 44 papers met the Include Criteria. The studies identified three types of studied areas about cloud computing in eHealth, namely (1) cloud-based eHealth framework design (n=13); (2) applications of cloud computing (n=17); and (3) security or privacy control mechanisms of healthcare data in the cloud (n=14). Most of the studies in the review were about designs and concept-proof. Only very few studies have evaluated their research in the real world, which may indicate that the application of cloud computing in eHealth is still very immature. However, our presented review could pinpoint that a hybrid cloud platform with mixed access control and security protection mechanisms will be a main research area for developing citizen centred home-based healthcare applications

After the Gold Rush: The Boom of the Internet of Things, and the Busts of Data-Security and Privacy

This Article addresses the impact that the lack of oversight of the Internet of Things has on digital privacy. While the Internet of Things is but one vehicle for technological innovation, it has created a broad glimpse into domestic life, thus triggering several privacy issues that the law is attempting to keep pace with. What the Internet of Things can reveal is beyond the control of the individual, as it collects information about every practical aspect of an individual’s life, and provides essentially unfettered access into the mind of its users. This Article proposes that the federal government and the state governments bend toward consumer protection while creating a cogent and predictable body of law surrounding the Internet of Things. Through privacy-by-design or self-help, it is imperative that the Internet of Things—and any of its unforeseen progeny—develop with an eye toward safeguarding individual privacy while allowing technological development

Prospect patents, data markets, and the commons in data-driven medicine : openness and the political economy of intellectual property rights

Scholars who point to political influences and the regulatory function of patent courts in the USA have long questioned the courts’ subjective interpretation of what ‘things’ can be claimed as inventions. The present article sheds light on a different but related facet: the role of the courts in regulating knowledge production. I argue that the recent cases decided by the US Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit, which made diagnostics and software very difficult to patent and which attracted criticism for a wealth of different reasons, are fine case studies of the current debate over the proper role of the state in regulating the marketplace and knowledge production in the emerging information economy. The article explains that these patents are prospect patents that may be used by a monopolist to collect data that everybody else needs in order to compete effectively. As such, they raise familiar concerns about failure of coordination emerging as a result of a monopolist controlling a resource such as datasets that others need and cannot replicate. In effect, the courts regulated the market, primarily focusing on ensuring the free flow of data in the emerging marketplace very much in the spirit of the ‘free the data’ language in various policy initiatives, yet at the same time with an eye to boost downstream innovation. In doing so, these decisions essentially endorse practices of personal information processing which constitute a new type of public domain: a source of raw materials which are there for the taking and which have become most important inputs to commercial activity. From this vantage point of view, the legal interpretation of the private and the shared legitimizes a model of data extraction from individuals, the raw material of information capitalism, that will fuel the next generation of data-intensive therapeutics in the field of data-driven medicine