Biometric Authentication for Intelligent and Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Systems

Abstract

Secure identification is a critical system requirement for patients seeking health-related services. In the event of critical, aged, or disabled patients who require frequent health treatments, quick and easy identification is vital. Researchers describe the notion of the unprotected environment in this study, in which patients can receive health services from the hospital’s smart and intelligent surroundings without the use of explicit equipment. Patients would interact directly with the environment and be identified through it. We suggest a biometric-based authentication technique for the unprotected hospital environment that also safeguards the patient’s identity privacy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this authentication technique is resistant to many well-known assaults, including insider attacks, replay attacks, and identity privacy. Doctors and other staff members showed enthusiastic responses after installing 2-factor authentications, as it makes their workflow efficient and makes things easier for patients. It also lets them focus on other factors rather than worrying about data security; hence, we need biometric authentication in intelligent and privacy-preserving healthcare systems. The paper deals with two-factor biometric authentication, and despite the added security, two-factor authentication adoption is said to be poor. It is due to a lack of awareness and difficulty to use and configure two-factor authentication (2FA) into a particular application by some individuals who struggle with the concept of authentication and its technology. Also, many 2FA methods in widespread use today have not been subjected to adequate usability testing. Research focuses on the point that there is still a large section of people unaware of the use of biometric systems to protect their online data. Researchers collected quantitative and qualitative data from 96 individuals during a two-week between-subjects usability survey of some common and rarely used 2FA approaches. The survey allowed the researcher to investigate which authentication methods are given higher priority and why, along with the relationship between different usage patterns and perceived usability, and identify user misconceptions and insecure habits to determine ease of use. It was observed that the biometric-based method was given the utmost preferability.