Using Blockchain to Achieve Decentralized Privacy In IoT Healthcare

TL;DR

This paper proposes a blockchain-based protocol for IoT healthcare that enhances patient privacy and access control without relying on third parties, addressing security concerns in traditional cloud storage models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel blockchain protocol tailored for resource-constrained IoT healthcare devices, avoiding traditional consensus methods like PoW to improve efficiency and security.

Findings

Enhanced privacy-preserving access control for e-health data

Reduced network bandwidth and processing costs

Security and privacy are formally analyzed and validated

Abstract

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), e-health has become one of the main topics of research. Due to the sensitivity of patient information, patient privacy seems challenging. Nowadays, patient data is usually stored in the cloud in healthcare programs, making it difficult for users to have enough control over their data. The recent increment in announced cases of security and surveillance breaches compromising patients' privacy call into question the conventional model, in which third-parties gather and control immense amounts of patients' Healthcare data. In this work, we try to resolve the issues mentioned above by using blockchain technology. We propose a blockchain-based protocol suitable for e-health applications that does not require trust in a third party and provides an efficient privacy-preserving access control mechanism. Transactions in our proposed system, unlike Bitcoin, are not entirely financial, and we do not use conventional methods for consensus operations in blockchain like Proof of Work (PoW). It is not suitable for IoT applications because IoT devices have resources-constraints. Usage of appropriate consensus method helps us to increase network security and efficiency, as well as reducing network cost, i.e., bandwidth and processor usage. Finally, we provide security and privacy analysis of our proposed protocol.