Privacy Protection in Pervasive Healthcare Monitoring Systems with Active Bundles

Abstract

The main problem in pervasive healthcare monitoring systems is protection of patient privacy without compromising their safety. Current solutions have two main limitations: (1) they require an extensive exchange of messages among patient's caregivers and devices in order to protect data, and (2) they depend on using decryption keys that must be provided to specific caregivers. The second limitation compromises safety of patients who need urgent help while their ad hoc caregivers have no access to their health (since they have no needed decryption keys). This paper proposes an approach for protecting privacy of patients based on active bundles. An active bundle encapsulates data, metadata, and a virtual machine. In healthcare monitoring systems, sensitive data are monitored health data. To avoid compromising of safety of patients who need urgent help, our approach does not depend on the use of decryption keys provided to specific caregivers (which is a commonly used approach). Instead, it combines the use of privacy policies and protection mechanisms included within active bundles, such as evaporation and apoptosis. In our approach, ad hoc caregivers are able to access urgently needed patients' data. Their authorizations are provided via privacy policies encapsulated in metadata of an active bundle including health data.