PHBio: A Pallier Homomorphic Biometric Encryption Scheme in Healthcare 4.0 Ecosystems

In healthcare 4.0 ecosystems, authentication of healthcare information allows health stakeholders to be assured that data is originated from correct source. Recently, biometric based authentication is a preferred choice, but as the templates are stored on central servers, there are high chances of copying and generating fake biometrics. An adversary can forge the biometric pattern, and gain access to critical health systems. Thus, to address the limitation, the paper proposes a scheme, PHBio, where an encryption-based biometric system is designed prior before storing the template to the server. Once a user provides his biometrics, the authentication process does not decrypt the data, rather uses a homomorphic-enabled Paillier cryptosystem. The scheme presents the encryption and the comparison part which is based on euclidean distance (EUD) strategy between the user input and the stored template on the server. We consider the minimum distance, and compare the same with a predefined threshold distance value to confirm a biometric match, and authenticate the user. The scheme is compared against parameters like accuracy, false rejection rates (FARs), and execution time. The proposed results indicate the validity of the scheme in real-time health setups.