A survey of data minimisation techniques in blockchain-based healthcare

The push for digitising personal health records needs to occur with serious consideration of privacy in order to instill public confidence. However, the healthcare sector still experiences leakage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) due to improper data protection practices and security fai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer networks (Amsterdam, Netherlands : 1999) Netherlands : 1999), 2022-03, Vol.205, p.108766, Article 108766
Main Authors: Mukta, Rahma, Paik, Hye-young, Lu, Qinghua, Kanhere, Salil S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blockchain
Blockchains
Cryptography
Data collection
Data minimisation
Data processing
Health care
Health care industry
Healthcare
Optimization
Privacy
R&D
Research & development
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Summary:The push for digitising personal health records needs to occur with serious consideration of privacy in order to instill public confidence. However, the healthcare sector still experiences leakage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) due to improper data protection practices and security failures by data custodians. Data minimisation refers to the practice of limiting personal data collection and usage to only what is required to fulfil a specific purpose, and is one of the directives in many privacy regulations and data protection acts. Blockchain technology provides a neutral third-party platform for healthcare applications on which trust can be built to increase confidence in all participating parties to create, store and share sensitive data. However, the aspects of design and implementation of data minimisation techniques within the blockchain context have not been systematically explored and no effort has been made to review and analyse the existing solutions so far. In this paper, we undertake a survey of data minimisation techniques in blockchain-based healthcare systems. We provide a broad definition of data minimisation and classify data minimisation approaches according to the different lifecycle phases of data processing workflows. We also present a comparative analysis on privacy properties achieved by these methods. This study offers a unique view of data minimisation from both data custodians and data owners’ viewpoints, and suggests several areas of future research and development to improve privacy in healthcare through data minimisation.
ISSN:1389-1286
1872-7069
DOI:10.1016/j.comnet.2022.108766