Title: A collaborative approval process for accessing sensitive data

Authors: Liam Peyton, Jun Hu, Hao Liu, Mansour Al-Saleh, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik

Addresses: School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada. ' School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada. ' School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada. ' School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada. ' School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada

Abstract: A collaborative environment to improve and streamline approval processes online is presented. A scenario for approving requests to access sensitive medical data records for research purposes from a medical data warehouse at a teaching hospital is used to illustrate the special requirements needed for collaborative approval processes. The architectural framework to support such processes is defined. It includes support for collaborative signatures, a service-oriented architecture to integrate security mechanisms, policy-based control to address privacy issues and categorisation and anonymisation of data along multiple dimensions to control access within a collaborative environment.

Keywords: security; privacy; digital signatures; data anonymisation; collaborative environments; sensitive data; approval processes; medical data; medical records; data warehouse; teaching hospital; access control; collaborative signatures.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2007.014059

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2007 Vol.29 No.1, pp.45 - 53

Published online: 14 Jun 2007 *

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