Robust SVD-based schemes for medical image watermarking

Abstract

Nowadays, several information security issues can compromise the medical images administration. The source and origin of the medical image must be authenticated to verify that it corresponds to the right patient. A second issue is to avoid detachment between an electronic medical record and the corresponding images. One possible solution is the use of digital watermarking techniques applied to medical images, considering the imperceptibility and robustness requirements of the medical imaging watermarking. To increase the security of medical image sharing and transfer, we present in this work a watermarking approach to protect medical images. This innovative approach consists precisely of carefully inserting hospital signature information and patient data into the medical image. The ambitious goal of our work is to properly integrate the watermark with as little distortion as possible to typically retain the medical information in the image. In this flexible approach DWT decomposition is applied to the image which allows a remarkably satisfactory adjustment during the insertion. An SVD is then applied to the three subbands LL, LH and HL, which allows retaining the maximum energy of the image in a necessary minimum of singular values. A possible combination of the three resulting singular value matrices is then performed for watermark integration. A possible combination of the three resulting singular value matrices is then performed for watermark integration. The proposed approach ensures information integrity, patient confidentiality when sharing data, and robustness to several conventional attacks.