Question

A privacy engineer is designing the identity and access management controls for a healthcare portal. Standard clinicians authenticate with username, password, and a hardware token to view routine records. However, a small subset of records flagged as highly sensitive (e.g., mental health and HIV status) require additional protection when accessed, without forcing all users through heavier authentication for every routine interaction. Which approach BEST balances privacy protection for the sensitive records with usability?

Accepted Answer

Implement step-up (adaptive) authentication that triggers an additional verification factor and re-confirms purpose when a user attempts to access records flagged as highly sensitive

Answer

Require all clinicians to complete biometric authentication at every login regardless of the record being accessed

Answer

Encrypt the highly sensitive records with a separate key and grant every clinician the decryption key at onboarding

Answer

Log all access to highly sensitive records and review the logs monthly to detect inappropriate viewing