On the Measurement of Privacy as an Attacker's Estimation Error

A wide variety of privacy metrics have been proposed in the literature to evaluate the level of protection offered by privacy enhancing-technologies. Most of these metrics are specific to concrete systems and adversarial models, and are difficult to generalize or translate to other contexts. Furthermore, a better understanding of the relationships between the different privacy metrics is needed to enable more grounded and systematic approach to measuring privacy, as well as to assist systems designers in selecting the most appropriate metric for a given application. In this work we propose a theoretical framework for privacy-preserving systems, endowed with a general definition of privacy in terms of the estimation error incurred by an attacker who aims to disclose the private information that the system is designed to conceal. We show that our framework permits interpreting and comparing a number of well-known metrics under a common perspective. The arguments behind these interpretations are based on fundamental results related to the theories of information, probability and Bayes decision.Comment: This paper has 18 pages and 17 figure

Assessing the disclosure protection provided by misclassification for survey microdata

Government statistical agencies often apply statistical disclosure limitation techniques to survey microdata to protect confidentiality. There is a need for ways to assess the protection provided. This paper develops some simple methods for disclosure limitation techniques which perturb the values of categorical identifying variables. The methods are applied in numerical experiments based upon census data from the United Kingdom which are subject to two perturbation techniques: data swapping and the post randomisation method. Some simplifying approximations to the measure of risk are found to work well in capturing the impacts of these techniques. These approximations provide simple extensions of existing risk assessment methods based upon Poisson log-linear models. A numerical experiment is also undertaken to assess the impact of multivariate misclassification with an increasing number of identifying variables. The methods developed in this paper may also be used to obtain more realistic assessments of risk which take account of the kinds of measurement and other non-sampling errors commonly arising in surveys

ANALYSING FACTORS INFLUENCING INTANGIBLE ASSET DISCLOSURE (STUDY IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND AUSTRALIA TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY)

This study aims to examine intangible asset voluntary disclosure practices in annual report telecommunication company in South East Asia and Australia. This research sample is 75 telecommunication company at year 2007, 2008 dan 2009. Intangible asset disclosure study consist of three categories; structural capital, relational capital and human capital, based on Oliveira et al. categories. This study using content analysis method in annual report sample companies with index developed by Oliveira et al. as dependent variable. Independent variable which are firm size, leverage, ownership concentration, EBITDA margin, legal system of home country and secrecy accounting value, are analysed as factors influencing intangible asset voluntary disclosure practices. A significant positive relationship was observed between intangible asset voluntary disclosure and firm size and secrecy accounting value. However, leverage, ownership concentration, EBITDA margin and legal system of home country did not influence intangible asset voluntary disclosure practices

Privacy and Confidentiality in an e-Commerce World: Data Mining, Data Warehousing, Matching and Disclosure Limitation

The growing expanse of e-commerce and the widespread availability of online databases raise many fears regarding loss of privacy and many statistical challenges. Even with encryption and other nominal forms of protection for individual databases, we still need to protect against the violation of privacy through linkages across multiple databases. These issues parallel those that have arisen and received some attention in the context of homeland security. Following the events of September 11, 2001, there has been heightened attention in the United States and elsewhere to the use of multiple government and private databases for the identification of possible perpetrators of future attacks, as well as an unprecedented expansion of federal government data mining activities, many involving databases containing personal information. We present an overview of some proposals that have surfaced for the search of multiple databases which supposedly do not compromise possible pledges of confidentiality to the individuals whose data are included. We also explore their link to the related literature on privacy-preserving data mining. In particular, we focus on the matching problem across databases and the concept of ``selective revelation'' and their confidentiality implications.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000240 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Efficient contracting, earnings smoothing and managerial accounting discretion

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the contracting incentives (i.e. bonus plans, debt covenants, political costs hypotheses), and income smoothing can explain accounting choices in an emerging country, Egypt. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the ordinary least square regression model to examine the relationship between earnings management and reporting objectives. A sample of 438 non-financial firms listed on the Egyptian Exchange over the period 2005-2007 is used. Findings – The paper finds that the contracting objectives explain little of the variations in accounting choices (i.e. discretionary accruals) in the Egyptian context. However, the paper finds that mangers are likely to smooth the reported earnings by managing the accrual component in an attempt to reduce the fluctuation in reported earnings by increasing (decreasing) earnings when earnings are low (high) in attempt to reduce the variability of the reported earnings. Research limitations/implications – The empirical results rely on the ability of earnings management proxies to adequately capture earnings manipulation activities. Practical implications – The findings of the study should be of substantial interest to regulators and policy makers. The results implicitly contribute to the ongoing argument in relation to the optimal flexibility permitted by standard setting and the argument that tightening the accounting standards and mandating International Financial Reporting Standards are likely to improve reporting quality and reduce opportunistic earnings management. The results reveal that many of the weaknesses related to corporate reporting in emerging countries may result from the inadequate enforcement of the law and the weak legal protection of minority shareholders. The results also highlight the crucial role of understanding the reporting incentives, which is mainly shaped by institutional and market forces and the legal environment, in explaining accounting choices. Originality/value – Unlike previous studies that tested an individual objective, this study examines the trade-offs among various reporting objectives in an emerging economy

Attitudes of Risk Management Professionals Toward Disclosure of Medical Mistakes

The author reports on health care organization risk managers\u27 attitudes toward disclosure of medical mistakes

THE EFFECTS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE AND FIRM CHARACTERISTIC TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE

This study aims to obtain empirical evidence about the effect of corporate governance structure and firm characteristic towards environmental disclosure of firms in Indonesia. Prior research review show that there is no consistency and have variety results. This research is a replication with modification of the research by Rao, et al (2012) and Burgwal and Vieira (2014) that examined the influence of corporate governance structure and firm characteristic on environmental disclosure. This study attempts to examine it with seven independent variables. These are independent commissioners, institutional ownership, board of commissioners size, proportion of women directors, firm size, profitability and industry type. The population of this study was all companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2012 and 2013. Sample consists of companies which disclose environmental disclosure through the GRI 3.1 index table on sustainability report so there are 59 firms that determined as samples and 59 observations of financial statements. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) test was used as an analysis technique to examine the hypotheses. Statistic program in this study used SPSS 20. The results of this study showed that board of independent commissioners, board of commissioners size and industry type have significant positive effect on environmental diclosure. While institutional ownership, proportion of women directors, firm size and profitability have no significant influence on environmental disclosure. This research showed that corporate governance practices and firm characteristic in Indonesia was still minimize to control the extent of environmental disclosure