Social Issues in Wireless Sensor Networks
with Healthcare Perspective

Moshaddique Al Ameen and Kyung Kwak
Graduate School of IT and Telecommunications, Inha University, Korea

Abstract: The recent advances in Wireless Sensor Networks have given rise to many application areas in healthcare. It has produced new field of Wireless Body Area Networks. Using wearable and non-wearable sensor devices humans can be tracked and monitored. Monitoring from the healthcare perspective can be with or without the consent of the particular person. Even if it is with the consent of the person involved, certain social issues arise from this type of application scenario. The issues can be privacy, security, legal and other related issues. Healthcare sensor networks applications have a bright future and it is a must to take up these issues at the earliest. The issues should be carefully studied and understood or else they can pose serious problems. In this paper we try to raise and discuss these issues and find some answers to them.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, healthcare systems, social issues, privacy, security, and legal issues.