The KONFIDO Ambition

KONFIDO will advance several aspects of the current state-of-the-art relating to the holistic system that will be developed and will smartly integrate the following components so as to provide a “universal” security solution to eHealth/mHealth:

Data security for eHealth/mHealth

KONFIDO advances the state-of-the-art in a number of independent security components, enhances interoperability of security and privacy and introduces a novel integration of CPU hardware security.

Security Information and Event Management

Applying SIEM solutions to a federated eHealth system poses a number of challenges such as the opportunistic nature of KONFIDO’s SIEM infrastructure, the need to monitor a cross-border eHealth infrastructure and the new techniques required for the monitoring of the innovative components i.e. homomorphic encryption and PUF.

Homomorphic Encryption

The development of homomorphic cryptosystems is advancing at a rapid pace. Therefore, KONFIDO’s compilation and run-time environment tools need to be developed correspondingly and be able to support a mix of clear and encrypted data, as in a real-life scenario.

Physical Unclonable Function-based security

Within the context of KONFIDO, alternative approaches based on the concept of p-PUFs will be evaluated and realized. The key features to be addressed are the optimization of the p-PUF, the integration of such schemes to the overall system architecture and security protocols to be used and the promotion of p-PUF technological readiness towards fully functional prototypes able to infiltrate mass production.

Blockchain auditing mechanisms

In the context of KONFIDO, blockchain auditing will allow all the relevant parties to be mutually assured to have the same exact copy of the data. The implementation will be based on a Proof of Publication and the blockchain will be applied to the secure store of log entries, a novel approach with respect to the current state-of-the-art that combines the highest security with the easiest deployment.

Interoperability on security and privacy aspects in eHealth and mHealth services

KONFIDO aims to establish an advanced uniform, seamless and interoperable interface with existing and forthcoming eHealth services and mHealth apps, operating under a common security and privacy framework offering protected data interconnection links between all needed actors across Europe.

Status on legal and societal issues on security of health-related data

KONFIDO seeks to yield a real advance in understanding the needs for supporting patient mobility in the EU and help EU government policy makers and the public health sector in their decisions on general policies/strategies, taking into consideration the current national law and the data protection rules as well as the ethical challenges of these technological innovations.

Compliance with applicable eID frameworks

KONFIDO will ensure that applicable eID frameworks (e.g. eIDAS) can be successfully used to handle e-Health data in cross-border scenarios, in which users are able to access the KONFIDO services with their own eIDs, with or without using physical devices.

The expected impact of the KONFIDO project is summarized in the points below:

  • Better acceptance of eHealth solutions among patients;
  • Encouraging Member States to widen the use of eHealth;
  • Ensuring the right of patients to cross-border healthcare;
  • Supporting the development of European legal and operational standards for cross-border data exchange and patient privacy protection;
  • Better protection against unauthorized use of personal data, breach of confidentiality and cybercrime;
  • Increasing the awareness of stakeholders, private and public ones, on the current level of data security;
  • Definition of clear architectures that will promote interoperability between eHealth solutions;
  • Advancement of available information security and privacy technologies, being one of the first reference implementations to integrate a series of solutions proposed by EU projects (OpenNCP, STORK/eIDAS etc.).