Privacy-Preserving Search of Similar Patients in Genomic Data

• Main Authors: Asharov Gilad, Halevi Shai, Lindell Yehuda, Rabin Tal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2018-10-01
• Series: Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies
• Subjects: genomic privacy; cryptographic protocols; edit-distance
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/popets-2018-0034

The growing availability of genomic data holds great promise for advancing medicine and research, but unlocking its full potential requires adequate methods for protecting the privacy of individuals whose genome data we use. One example of this tension is running Similar Patient Query on remote genomic data: In this setting a doctor that holds the genome of his/her patient may try to find other individuals with “close” genomic data, and use the data of these individuals to help diagnose and find effective treatment for that patient’s conditions. This is clearly a desirable mode of operation. However, the privacy exposure implications are considerable, and so we would like to carry out the above “closeness” computation in a privacy preserving manner.