Privacy in Mobile Web Services eHealth

Abstract

There are many advantages to deploying mobile devices in eHealth systems. However; security is still an issue: in particular authentication and user privacy. In this paper we propose a novel architecture that integrates 3GPP UMTS mobile technology with Web services. This will help address authentication and privacy concern within eHealth environment. The architecture makes use of the Generic Authentication Architecture from the 3GPP and the Single Sign-On system to authenticate mobile users to a Health Authentication Server to give access to various eHealth Service Providers. The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project is thus used to manage privacy in the system.

The Technological Growth in eHealth Services

“…Articles [ 11 , 75 , 133 ] focus on the integration of mobile and Internet technologies for better delivery of health services. Papers [ 152 – 154 ] discuss the security related issues like authentication and authorization. The study also proposes models/solutions for dealing with the problem of security.…”

Monitoring Heart Disease and Diabetes with Mobile Internet Communications

“…For mobile devices, an additional preliminary safeguard before making such a secure connection, or controling access to authorised users only beyond login details (e.g., username, password), is to verify the device used to access the data. The knowledge a mobile network operator has regarding its subscriber is used to verify the subscriber identity module (SIM) card to the clinic for data access [ 43 , 44 ]. Once a connection is established and before data is transmitted, some additional mutual authentication between people at the remote ends is another safeguard proposed [ 45 ].…”

Patient’s privacy protection with anonymous access to medical services

“…They have used a real scenario implemented through a well-established distributed electronic environment in Greece that treats beta-thalassemia patient for more than five years [4]. One of our previous papers addresses authentication and privacy concern in electronic healthcare environment and ways to prevent it using the technologies such as Web services, Generic Authentication Architecture from 3GPP and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) [2]. A group of researchers from Aalborg University, Denmark have proposed a solution to protect user sensitive data with contextaware privacy protection mechanism by filtering the data before any disclosure in a medical environment [9].…”