Privacy-preserving targeted advertising scheme for IPTV using the cloud

In this paper, we present a privacy-preserving scheme for targeted advertising via the Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). The scheme uses a communication model involving a collection of viewers/subscribers, a content provider (IPTV), an advertiser, and a cloud server. To provide high quality directed advertising service, the advertiser can utilize not only demographic information of subscribers, but also their watching habits. The latter includes watching history, preferences for IPTV content and watching rate, which are published on the cloud server periodically (e.g. weekly) along with anonymized demographics. Since the published data may leak sensitive information about subscribers, it is safeguarded using cryptographic techniques in addition to the anonymization of demographics. The techniques used by the advertiser, which can be manifested in its queries to the cloud, are considered (trade) secrets and therefore are protected as well. The cloud is oblivious to the published data, the queries of the advertiser as well as its own responses to these queries. Only a legitimate advertiser, endorsed with a so-called {\em trapdoor} by the IPTV, can query the cloud and utilize the query results. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated with experiments, which show that the scheme is suitable for practical usage

Privacy in the Genomic Era

Genome sequencing technology has advanced at a rapid pace and it is now possible to generate highly-detailed genotypes inexpensively. The collection and analysis of such data has the potential to support various applications, including personalized medical services. While the benefits of the genomics revolution are trumpeted by the biomedical community, the increased availability of such data has major implications for personal privacy; notably because the genome has certain essential features, which include (but are not limited to) (i) an association with traits and certain diseases, (ii) identification capability (e.g., forensics), and (iii) revelation of family relationships. Moreover, direct-to-consumer DNA testing increases the likelihood that genome data will be made available in less regulated environments, such as the Internet and for-profit companies. The problem of genome data privacy thus resides at the crossroads of computer science, medicine, and public policy. While the computer scientists have addressed data privacy for various data types, there has been less attention dedicated to genomic data. Thus, the goal of this paper is to provide a systematization of knowledge for the computer science community. In doing so, we address some of the (sometimes erroneous) beliefs of this field and we report on a survey we conducted about genome data privacy with biomedical specialists. Then, after characterizing the genome privacy problem, we review the state-of-the-art regarding privacy attacks on genomic data and strategies for mitigating such attacks, as well as contextualizing these attacks from the perspective of medicine and public policy. This paper concludes with an enumeration of the challenges for genome data privacy and presents a framework to systematize the analysis of threats and the design of countermeasures as the field moves forward

Privacy-preserving data outsourcing in the cloud via semantic data splitting

Even though cloud computing provides many intrinsic benefits, privacy concerns related to the lack of control over the storage and management of the outsourced data still prevent many customers from migrating to the cloud. Several privacy-protection mechanisms based on a prior encryption of the data to be outsourced have been proposed. Data encryption offers robust security, but at the cost of hampering the efficiency of the service and limiting the functionalities that can be applied over the (encrypted) data stored on cloud premises. Because both efficiency and functionality are crucial advantages of cloud computing, in this paper we aim at retaining them by proposing a privacy-protection mechanism that relies on splitting (clear) data, and on the distributed storage offered by the increasingly popular notion of multi-clouds. We propose a semantically-grounded data splitting mechanism that is able to automatically detect pieces of data that may cause privacy risks and split them on local premises, so that each chunk does not incur in those risks; then, chunks of clear data are independently stored into the separate locations of a multi-cloud, so that external entities cannot have access to the whole confidential data. Because partial data are stored in clear on cloud premises, outsourced functionalities are seamlessly and efficiently supported by just broadcasting queries to the different cloud locations. To enforce a robust privacy notion, our proposal relies on a privacy model that offers a priori privacy guarantees; to ensure its feasibility, we have designed heuristic algorithms that minimize the number of cloud storage locations we need; to show its potential and generality, we have applied it to the least structured and most challenging data type: plain textual documents

Exploring Privacy-Preserving Disease Diagnosis: A Comparative Analysis

In the healthcare sector, data is considered as a valuable asset, with enormous amounts generated in the form of patient records and disease-related information. Leveraging machine learning techniques enables the analysis of extensive datasets, unveiling hidden patterns in diseases, facilitating personalized treatments, and forecasting potential health issues. However, the flourish of online diagnosis and prediction still faces some challenges related to information security and privacy as disease diagnosis technologies utilizes a lot of clinical records and sensitive patient data. Hence, it becomes imperative to prioritize the development of innovative methodologies that not only advance the accuracy and efficiency of disease prediction but also ensure the highest standards of privacy protection. This requires collaborative efforts between researchers, healthcare practitioners, and policymakers to establish a comprehensive framework that addresses the evolving landscape of healthcare data while safeguarding individual privacy. Addressing this constraint, numerous researchers integrate privacy preservation measures with disease prediction techniques to develop a system capable of diagnosing diseases without compromising the confidentiality of sensitive information. The survey paper conducts a comparative analysis of privacy-preserving techniques employed in disease diagnosis and prediction. It explores existing methodologies across various domains, assessing their efficacy and trade-offs in maintaining data confidentiality while optimizing diagnostic accuracy. The review highlights the need for robust privacy measures in disease prediction, shortcomings related to existing techniques of privacy preserving disease diagnosis, and provides insights into promising directions for future research in this critical intersection of healthcare and privacy preservation