Patent · US Active

Data anonymization based on guessing anonymity

US8627483B2 · kind B2 · utility

250Cited by
18References
24Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 18, 2008
Grant dateJan 7, 2014
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 27, 2031

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L9/30
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Privacy is defined in the context of a guessing game based on the so-called guessing inequality. The privacy of a sanitized record, i.e., guessing anonymity, is defined by the number of guesses an attacker needs to correctly guess an original record used to generate a sanitized record. Using this definition, optimization problems are formulated that optimize a second anonymization parameter (privacy or data distortion) given constraints on a first anonymization parameter (data distortion or privacy, respectively). Optimization is performed across a spectrum of possible values for at least one noise parameter within a noise model. Noise is then generated based on the noise parameter value(s) and applied to the data, which may comprise real and/or categorical data. Prior to anonymization, the data may have identifiers suppressed, whereas outlier data values in the noise perturbed data may be likewise modified to further ensure privacy.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.