A Computational Fusion Of Distributed Ledger And Smart Card Technologies For Medical Information Access Control

Abstract

Privacy is considered a human right and freedom that must be enjoyed by everyone. This extends to information including medical records where the lack of Access control has enabled organizations or stakeholders to manage who is authorized to access data or information at a particular point. There are many ways access control can be achieved through identification of users by verifying various login credentials, which can include usernames and passwords, PINs, biometric scans, and security tokens. Since the adoption of technology in the health industry, more data is collected and stored on health care providers’ systems with the patient keeping only a physical copy of this data leaving them with no control. In this research, we examine decentralization using distributed ledger technology and smart card to provide patients comprehensive but easy control to their medical information across stakeholders like insurance firms, medical facilities, employers, and insurance firms. Both technologies have properties like authentication, integrity, temper proof, and audit-ability among others and their integration leveraged underlying algorithms of consensus and cryptography. The technologies give unique ways on enforcing security and enabling access control while eliminating any violation of the authorisation and authentication to information there by providing the data owners control over their data and preserving privacy.