BMPLS: Blockchain-Based Multi-level Privacy-Preserving Location Sharing Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems

Abstract

The sharing of patients' locations is an important part in mobile medical services and modern smart healthcare. Although location sharing based on blockchains has advantages on decentralization and openness, there is also a challenge to guarantee the security and the privacy of locations recorded in a blockchain. To this end, this paper investigates the location sharing based on blockchains for telecare medical information systems. Firstly, we define the basic requirements of blockchain-based location sharing including decentralization, unforgeability, confidentiality, multi-level privacy protection, retrievability and verifiability. Then, using order-preserving encryption and merkle tree, we propose a blockchain-based multi-level location sharing scheme, i.e. BMPLS. The analysis results show that our scheme satisfies the above requirements. Finally, the performance of our scheme is evaluated and the experiment results show that our scheme is efficient and feasible for both patients and medical workers. In a word, our scheme can be applied to realize privacy-preserving location sharing based on blockchains for telecare medical information systems.

Blockchain Technology in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Review and Directions for Future Research

“…In addition, data sharing and collaboration via blockchain could help hospitals get a prior understanding of patients' medical history before the consultation. Ji et al [72] proposed a multi-level location sharing scheme based on blockchain technology. The goal was to achieve the privacy-preserving location sharing by blockchain for telecare medical information systems.…”

“…They define the primary requirements for location sharing decentralization, confidentiality, variability, multi-level privacy protection, irretrievability, and unforgeability by using Merkle tree and order-preserving encryption. The experimental results showed that the scheme is practical and feasible for patients and medical staff, and can be applied to location information protection in telecare information systems [72]. Shen et al [73] proposed MedChain, an efficient session-based healthcare data sharing based on blockchain.…”

A Privacy-Preserving, Accountable and Spam-Resilient Geo-Marketplace

“…CreditCoin [24] uses the blockchain and threshold ring signatures to achieve anonymity for smart vehicles. The work in [17] proposed a blockchain-based location sharing scheme for telecare medical information systems. However, in their system, locations are encrypted using an orderpreserving encryption scheme, which is known to incur significant leakage.…”

Review on “Blockchain technology based medical healthcare system with privacy issues”

“…This signature will be required while scanning of this wearable device embedded with IoT technology, where data are stored for further analysis. Also, wireless mobile technology is developing, Telecare Medical Information Systems can be used more and more, which can help track the patients and their data . This location can help track those patients suffering from chronic disease or an infectious disease etc.…”