Secure and Usable QR Codes for Healthcare Systems: The Case of Covid-19 Pandemic

Recently, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing interest in employing secure technology in health care systems, enhancing workflow, reducing costs, and developing the flexibility of providing healthcare services to users. QR codes are accessible, free, easy to use, and can be scanned through several free apps on smartphones. QR codes can help healthcare systems as an effective alternative to using paper-based documents for a patient identity system. Sensitive information can be stored in the QR codes of patients and medical staff as offline data or stored in a particular URL. Besides, QR codes can hold prescriptions and electronic permits used during the lockdown period. As there is no standard structure or authentication phase in QR code generation, such codes are vulnerable to fake content. This study’s main objective is to protect healthcare information embedded inside QR codes by employing cryptographic mechanisms. Several experiments were conducted to determine how different features and users deal with barcode scanning. We introduce an authentication and integrity phase during QR code generation. We integrated digital signature, encryption, and access control techniques into a secure, real-time barcode generator and scanner implementation to protect QR code content against unauthorized users. The results demonstrate that the proposed system enables generating secure and usable QR codes for healthcare information protection among several scenarios.