Achieving Searchable and Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing for Cloud-Assisted E-Healthcare System

Abstract

The integration of wearable wireless devices and cloud computing in e-health systems has significantly improved their effectiveness and availability. Patients can upload their personal health information (PHI) files to the cloud, from where the health service providers (HSPs) can obtain appropriate information to determine the health state. This system not only reduces the costs associated to healthcare but also provides timely diagnosis to save lives. However, a number of privacy concerns arise while sharing sensitive information. In this paper, we propose a novel privacy-preserving patient health information sharing scheme, which allows HSPs to access and search PHI files in a secure yet efficient manner. We make use of the searchable encryption technique with keyword range search and multikeyword search. The proposed privacy-preserving equality test protocol allows different types of numeric comparison searches on encrypted data. We also use a variant of bloom filter and message authentication code to classify PHI files, filter false data, and check integrity of search results. The simulations on real-world and synthetic data show the feasibility and efficiency of the system, and security analysis proves the privacy-preservation properties.