A Blockchain and Self-Sovereign Identity-Based Platform for Electronic Health Records Management Under GDPR
Hela Makina, Asma Ben Letaïfa, Abderrezak Rachedi · 2024
This paper presents a novel framework for secure management of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). It addresses the challenges of privacy protection, data ownership, and regulatory compliance. By adopting a patient-centric approach, the architecture ensures compliance with international regulations while providing efficient data security and access control mechanisms. Leveraging blockchain technology, smart contracts, De-centralized Identifiers (DIDs) and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), the model facilitates decentralized au-thentication and authorization, ensuring patients full ownership and enabling multiple user access to medical records. Blockchain technolgy and IPFS ensure data integrity and immutability and transaction transparency and auditability. Smart contracts are implemented to leverage multiple transcations to grant, get, delegate, and revoke access to eHealth data. As a proof of concept, we implemented the proposed architecture on a polygon blockchain and integrate the walt.id API for DID generation, enabling the patient with the right to grant and revoke access for his own records. The proposed architecture aligns with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) directives concerning personal data privacy, guaranteeing both data security and transaction transparency and traceability.