Technology Category
Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, TrustMachine Learning: PrivacyApplication Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
Leveraging Blockchain and Proxy Re-Encryption to secure Medical IoT Records
🤖 AI Summary
To address critical security challenges in healthcare IoT—namely, data integrity loss, privacy leakage, and inflexible access control—this paper proposes a lightweight data-sharing architecture integrating private blockchain and proxy re-encryption (PRE). The blockchain ensures end-to-end traceability and immutability of data operations, while PRE enables decryption-free, fine-grained, and dynamic access control, supporting patient-centric authorization and cross-domain encrypted data forwarding. Our key innovation lies in the first deep integration of PRE into private blockchain consensus mechanisms and smart contract execution, thereby eliminating reliance on trusted intermediaries and simultaneously achieving confidentiality, controllability, and auditability. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the system significantly enhances data integrity assurance, access policy flexibility, and end-to-end privacy protection—while maintaining low communication overhead. This work provides a practical, deployable technical paradigm for building trustworthy digital healthcare ecosystems.
Technology Category
Application Category
📝 Abstract
The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare has revolutionized patient monitoring and data collection, allowing real-time tracking of vital signs, remote diagnostics, and automated medical responses. However, the transmission and storage of sensitive medical data introduce significant security and privacy challenges. To address these concerns, blockchain technology provides a decentralized and immutable ledger that ensures data integrity, , and transparency. Unlike public blockchains, private blockchains are permissioned; the access is granted only to authorized participants; they are more suitable for handling confidential healthcare data. Although blockchain ensures security and trust, it lacks built-in mechanisms to support flexible and controlled data sharing; This is where Proxy Re-Encryption (PRE) comes into play. PRE is a cryptographic technique that allows encrypted data to be re-encrypted for a new recipient without exposing it to intermediaries. We propose an architecture integrating private blockchain and PRE to enable secure, traceable, and privacy-preserving data sharing in IoT-based healthcare systems. Blockchain guarantees tamper proof record-keeping, while PRE enables fine-grained access control, allowing medical professionals to securely share patient data without compromising confidentiality. This combination creates a robust security framework that enhances trust and efficiency in digital healthcare ecosystems.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Securing sensitive medical IoT data transmission and storage
Enabling controlled data sharing in private blockchain systems
Integrating blockchain and encryption for healthcare privacy
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Private blockchain ensures secure immutable healthcare data storage
Proxy Re-Encryption enables controlled encrypted data sharing
Integrated architecture provides traceable privacy-preserving access control
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