On supporting anonymity in a BAN biometric framework

The flourishing technology of physiological biometrics, particularly those related to medical information, has raised concerns about the intrusion to individuals´ private information. This paper proposes a novel biometric framework for managing sensitive information. A privacy oriented body area network (BAN), with electrocardiogram (ECG) based recognition, is presented for supporting anonymity. In this framework, service providers are equipped with the possibility of pervasive subject monitoring, potentially eliminating the need for authenticated identities, while offering an automatic way of managing personal information. To this end, the central node of each BAN is designed to handle both the communication with external resources, and the processing of ECG personalized signatures destined to identify an individual. Sensitive information reaches the server with anonymity guarantees, to be stored automatically in the associated file.