Using fingerprints to identify personal health record users in an emergency situation

Personal Health Records (PHRs) is a system that allows an individual to store and share his/her health related information with others. The PHR owner can control all accesses to his/her data stored on the PHR system. This work aims to propose a privacy-preserved identification scheme to be used in the PHR system during an emergency situation especially when the victim is unconscious. The fingerprint-based scheme under a Protected Biometric Template (PBT) concept is applied to identify the victim without compromising the privacy of the victim. The usability and security discussions show that the proposed scheme is practical under the current existing communication technology and environment.