Privacy preserving data management in recruiting participants for digital clinical trials

Abstract

Our data is now more valuable than ever. The uncontrolled growth of internet-centered services has led us to accept many compromises about how we share it. In the era of Internet of Things, smart devices are collecting personal data continuously. Now, more than ever, we are in need of privacy-preserving applications where users are always in control of their sensitive data. Previous work focus on the preservation of privacy on datasets possibly collected during clinical trials. In contrast, here we focus on the preservation of privacy during the preliminary recruiting phase of a clinical trial. Our solution, is the first where a) user's data are not stored in any public database and remain in the user's private space during the whole recruiting phase and b) at the same time the Clinical Research Institute is assured that it is acquiring useful and authentic data. We provide a proof-of-concept implementation and study its performance based on a real-world evaluation.