Trust delegation for medical records access using public mobile networks

Abstract

This paper provides detailed solutions for trust delegation and secure temporary storage of medical records for authorized users in public mobile communication networks. The solutions presented in this paper enable the development of software that can be used by emergency medical units in urgent need of sensitive personal information about unconscious patients. In today's world, technical improvements in mobile communication systems mean that users can expect to have access to data at any time regardless of their location. While this paradigm is a natural goal for both service providers and users in commercial applications, for the exchange of sensitive personal medical information authentication and security present major challenges. This paper presents a token-based procedure for the delegation of trust between a requesting mobile unit and secure medical data storage. Once the trust is established, the received data should only temporarily be available. Our paper presents the design of the proposed solutions and gives details of the software demonstration developed in our research group.