Published Paper Details:

The purpose of this paper is to assess the cybersecurity and data privacy in wearable health technologies. Wearable sensors measure and record data from physiological and biochemical systems, and they are used to transmit health data via mobile applications and web-based platforms to healthcare providers and health records stored in the cloud [1]. These digital tools, if used properly, could become a valuable aid to medicine decision making based on research evidence, could encourage better patient participation in changing health behavior and could soon lead to preventive strategies that are both timely and individualized. One of the innovative trends in wearable health technology is the application of portable or wearable medical devices for remote monitoring and chronic disease management. These technologies provide online data transmission of real-time health status between patients and healthcare givers at non-traditional clinical settings. While these technologies remain in their infancy, security and privacy concerns need to be taken into account so as to allow a wide adoption of health information systems by both health professionals and individuals. Health records also contain information on prescriptions, used for creating and selling fake IDs to obtain controlled substances; and specific details, such as diagnosis or lab results, which could potentially be used for blackmail or discrimination [1]. With the increase in amount and sensitivity of data being collected by wearable health technologies, this trend of targeting healthcare data is likely to shift towards the cloud servers and databases storing this information. Given the rate at which these technologies are being adopted, it is imperative that we think about proactively addressing these cybersecurity and privacy challenges, rather than waiting for a disastrous event to occur.