A service-oriented architecture for managing privacy compliance in collaborative environments

Abstract

Reliable, secure and verifiable data sharing over the Internet has become an important need, especially in the face of privacy regulations. Sensitive data must be well managed when there is collaboration between individuals and organisations. A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) can provide a flexible and well managed framework for collaboration that can support the dynamic enabling of access to privacy-protected data from one collaborator to another via a rich variety of services. A framework that incorporates multiple control strategies is required to enable security and support dynamic delegation of access to collaborators. A distributed audit service is required to verify compliance with privacy regulations. The proposed framework is illustrated and evaluated in the context of a collaborative online medical consultation system.