Impact of privacy issues on user behavioural acceptance of personalized mHealth services

Health can provide efficient and convenient personalized healthcare services to a variety of patients with diverse medical needs. Existing security vulnerabilities, such as identity theft, loss or theft of mHealth devices and health information raise grave concerns in preserving privacy as well as in promoting user acceptance. With the advent of location dependent personalized mHealth services, access control coupled with cryptographic techniques are seen as pragmatic solutions in preserving privacy of mHealth data in addition to the formal regulatory requirements. In this view, we discuss the impact of privacy threats on user acceptance of personalized mHealth services. As well as the implications of enforcing privacy preserving enforcements at mHealth device level, network level and regulatory measures for sustainable and wide-spread use of personalized mHealth services in future.