Privacy and Anonymity in Information Management Systems: New Techniques for New Practical Problems

204 Pages·2010·3.92 MB·English

by  Javier Herranz

Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing
SeriesEditors
ProfessorLakhmiJain
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ProfessorXindongWu
[email protected]
Forothertitlespublishedinthisseries,goto
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·
Jordi Nin Javier Herranz
Editors
Privacy and Anonymity
in Information Management
Systems
New Techniques for New Practical Problems
123
Editors
Dr.JordiNin Dr.JavierHerranz
UniversitatPolitècnicadeCatalunya UniversitatPolitècnicade
Dept.ArquitecturadeComputadors Catalunya
C.JordiGirona1-3 Dept.MatemàticaAplicadaIV
08034Barcelona C.JordiGirona1-3
Spain 08034Barcelona
[email protected] Spain
[email protected]
AI&KPISSN1610-3947
ISBN978-1-84996-237-7 e-ISBN978-1-84996-238-4
DOI10.1007/978-1-84996-238-4
SpringerLondonDordrechtHeidelbergNewYork
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(cid:2)c Springer-VerlagLondonLimited2010
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“Nooneshallbesubjectedtoarbitrary
interferencewithhisprivacy,family,homeor
correspondence,nortoattacksuponhis
honourandreputation.Everyonehasthe
righttotheprotectionofthelawagainstsuch
interferenceorattacks”
Article12ofUniversalDeclarationof
HumanRights(1948)

Foreword
As depicted in David Lodge’s celebrated novel Small World, the perceived size of
ourworldexperiencedaprogressivedecreaseasjetairplanesbecameaffordableto
evergreatersharesoftheearth’spopulation.Yet,thereallydramaticshrinkinghad
towaituntilthemid-1990s,whenInternetbecamewidespreadandtheinformation
age stopped being an empty buzzword. But small is not necessarily beautiful. We
nowliveinaglobalvillageand,alas,some(oftenverypowerful)voicesstatethat
we ought not expect any more privacy in it. Should this be true, we would have
created our own nightmare: a global village combining the worst of conventional
villages,wherealotofinformationonanindividualisknownbytheothervillagers,
and conventional big cities, where the invidual feels lost in a grim and potentially
dangerousplace.
Whereassecurityisessentialfororganizationstosurvive,individualsandsome-
times even companies also need some privacy to develop comfortably and lead a
free life. This is the reason why individual privacy is mentioned in the Univer-
sal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and data privacy is protected by law in
mostWesterncountries.Indeed,withoutprivacy,therestoffundamentalrights,like
freedom of speech and democracy, are impaired. The outstanding challenge is to
createtechnologythatimplementsthoselegalguaranteesinawaycompatiblewith
functionalityandsecurity.
This book edited by Dr. Javier Herranz and Dr. Jordi Nin is devoted to edge-
cutting data privacy technologies devised to cope with the huge automated private
data collection inherent to the information society. Indeed, electronic transactions
overtheInternet,mobilephones,etc.,resultinvastamountsofdatabeingcollected
whichaddtothedatatraditionallycollectedbygovernmentagencies.Ifnospecial
protectiveactionwastaken,poolingallthosedatawouldallowcreatingfairlyaccu-
rateprofilesofeachcitizenorconsumer.Yet,the(avowable)purposeofdatacollec-
tionisnotprofilingspecificindividuals:rather,itisconductingstatisticaland/ordata
mininganalysesinviewofextractingknowledgeongeneraltrendsorrelationships
betweenvariables.Suchanalyticalgoalsmustbe,andtheyactuallyare,compatible
withtheprivacyoftheindividualpeopleororganizationstowhichthedatarelate.
Thefirstpartofthebookgivesanoverviewonprivacy-preservingdatamanage-
ment.Thenthereisapartdevotedtostatisticaldisclosurecontrol,whichaimsatcon-
ciliating the utility of statistical data (whether microdata or tabular data) expected
vii
viii Foreword
by users with a sufficiently low disclosure risk required by respondents to whom
the data correspond. The last part of the book deals with preserving privacy in a
numberofapplications,likedatamining,datasharing,andsocialnetworks.Hence,
thebookisaccessibleandrelevanttoabroadaudience,includingstatisticians,data
managers,dataminers,privacyexperts,andcomputerscientistsingeneral.
Foralongtimealready,ithasbeenmypleasuretodoresearchwiththecoeditors
andwithseveralchaptercontributorsofthisbook.Theyareafineblendofcomputer
scientists doing research in database security and privacy, academic statisticians
specializing in statistical disclosure control, and practitioners in data management
andsoftwaredevelopment.Knowingnearlyallofthemprofessionally,Ihaveevery
reasontoexpectthatthereaderwillbenefitfromtheirproficiencyandtheircommu-
nicationskillsintheareaofprivatedatamanagement.
Tarragona,6thJanuary2010 JosepDomingo-Ferrer
(TheThreeWiseMen’sDay) Chairholder
UNESCOChairinDataPrivacy
DepartmentofComputerEngineering
andMathematics
Tarragona,Catalonia
Acknowledgments
First of all, we want to thank the authors who accepted our invitation to prepare a
chapterforthisbook.Theydidagreatjob,firstbywritingveryinterestingchapters
and then by taking into account the comments that they got from the reviewers.
Theyfollowedtheguidelinesanddeadlinesthatweset,andingeneral,theymade
oureditingworkquitehandy.
Wearealsoindebtedtotheexternalpeoplewhohelpedustoreviewtheprelim-
inaryversionsofthechapters.Thelistofreviewersissmall,buttheircontribution
has been really big. They are Mark J. Elliot, Vicenç Torra, and Alexandre Viejo.
Special thanks also go to Prof. Josep Domingo-Ferrer for writing the foreword of
thebook.
We would also like to thank the support that we have received from Springer,
personifiedbyRebeccaMowatandBeverleyFord.
Regarding institutional acknowledgments, the work of the two editors is sup-
ported by different public institutions. Both of them are supported by Spanish
MECMinistry(projectARES–CONSOLIDERINGENIO2010CSD2007-00004).
Javier Herranz enjoys a Ramón y Cajal grant, partially funded by the European
SocialFund(ESF),fromSpanishMICINNMinistry.JordiNinissupportedbythe
European Community through the 7th Framework Programme Marie Curie Intra-
Europeanfellowship,contractNo235226.
ix