Feasibility of Homomorphic Encryption for Sharing I2B2 Aggregate-Level Data in the Cloud

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Informatics
• Cloud Computing Security
• Cryptography

Background:

• Biomedical data management faces challenges in adopting cloud computing due to privacy and security concerns.
• Sensitive clinical information requires robust protection against unintended leakage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the feasibility of advanced privacy-enhancing technologies for secure clinical data sharing in public clouds.
• To minimize risks associated with sensitive clinical information in cloud environments.

Main Methods:

• Focus on homomorphic encryption, a cryptographic technique allowing computation on encrypted data.
• Demonstrate the efficient computation of aggregating queries on ciphertexts using homomorphic encryption.
• Apply methods to the i2b2 data model to ensure end-to-end confidentiality.

Main Results:

• Homomorphic encryption can be efficiently applied to compute aggregating queries on encrypted clinical data.
• End-to-end confidentiality of aggregate-level data is achievable using this approach.
• The feasibility of using homomorphic encryption for secure cloud-based medical data sharing is demonstrated.

Conclusions:

• Homomorphic encryption is a viable solution for enhancing privacy and security in cloud-based biomedical data management.
• This technology facilitates the sharing of sensitive clinical data while mitigating privacy risks.
• Adoption of such advanced encryption methods can accelerate cloud computing in the biomedical community.