Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol

• US 20070282796A1
• Filed: 04/01/2005
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Veeva Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Crossix Solutions, Inc. (Veeva Systems Incorporated)
• Inventors: Evenhaim, Asaf
• Granted Patent: US 7,823,207 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients

Abstract

Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol, between a secure “aggregator” and “sources” having respective access to privacy-sensitive micro-data, the protocol including: the “aggregator” accepting a user query and transmitting a parameter list for that query to the “sources” (often including privacy-problematic identifiable specifics to be analyzed); the “sources” then forming files of privacy-sensitive data-items according to the parameter list and privacy filtering out details particular to less than a predetermined quantity of micro-data-specific data-items; and the “aggregator” merging the privacy-filtered files into a data-warehouse to formulate a privacy-safe response to the user—even though the user may have included privacy-problematic identifiable specifics.

Claims

1. A Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol, operating between a secure “

aggregator”

data processor and at least one of “

source-entity”

data processor, wherein the “

aggregator” and

the “

source-entity”

processors are interconnected via an electronic data-communications topology, and the protocol includes the steps of;

A) on the side of the “

aggregator”

processor;

(i) from a user interface—

accepting a query against a plurality of the predetermined attributes and therewith forming a parameter list, (ii) via the topology—

transmitting the parameter list to each of the “

source-entity”

processors, (iii) via the topology—

receiving a respective file from each of the “

source-entity”

processors, (iv) aggregating the plurality of files into a data-warehouse, (v) using the parameter list, extracting query relevant data from the data-warehouse, (vi) agglomerating the extract, and (vii) to a user interface—

reporting the agglomerated extract; and

B) on the side of each processor of the at least one “

source-entity”

processors;

(i) accumulating data-items wherein some of the data-items have privacy sensitive micro-data, (ii) organizing the data-items using the plurality of predetermined attributes, (iii) via the topology—

receiving a parameter list from the “

aggregator”

processor, (iv) forming a file by “

crunching together”

the data-items according to the parameter list, (v) filtering out portions of the file which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity of micro-data-specific data-items, and (vi) via the topology—

transmitting the file to the “

aggregator”

processor.

2. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein transmitting the parameter list includes transmitting a sufficiently large list of identity disclosing specifics.

3. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein agglomerating the extract includes filtering out portions of the extract which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity data-items.

4. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 3 wherein filtering out portions of the extract which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity data-items includes the predetermined quantity being selected from the list, ordinal number, percentage of instances in the data-warehouse, data instances outside of mean plus predetermined number of standard distribution units.

5. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein agglomerating the extract includes filtering out portions of the extract so that only identity-free micro-data remains.

6. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein accepting a query includes performing a preprocessing privacy check against a predetermined source-entity data-ensemble model.

7. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein “

crunching together”

the data-items includes joining data-items having a mutual micro-data-specific.

8. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein, selected from the list of sub-steps aggregating, extracting, agglomerating, accumulating, organizing, and crunching, at least one sub-step includes fuzzy matching.

9. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein filtering out portions of the file which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity of micro-data-specific data-items includes selecting the predetermined quantity from the list, an ordinal number, a percentage of instances in the data-warehouse, data instances outside of statistical mean-or-median plus-and/or-minus a predetermined number of standard deviation units.

10. The Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol according to claim 1 wherein accepting a query includes transforming the query into a standardized query—

capable of resulting in a syndicated reporting of the agglomerated extract.

11. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for “

aggregator”

data processor functions in a Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol, said method steps including;

(i) from a user interface—

accepting a query against a plurality of the predetermined attributes and therewith forming a parameter list, (ii) via an electronic data-communications topology—

transmitting the parameter list to at least one “

source-entity”

processors, (iii) via the topology—

receiving a respective file from each of the “

source-entity”

processors, (iv) aggregating the plurality of files into a data-warehouse, (v) using the parameter list, extracting query relevant data from the data-warehouse, (vi) agglomerating the extract, and (vii) to a user interface—

reporting the agglomerated extract.

12. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for “

source-entity”

data processor functions in a Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol, said method steps including;

(i) accumulating data-items wherein some of the data-items have privacy sensitive micro-data, (ii) organizing the data-items using the plurality of predetermined attributes, (iii) via an electronic data-communications topology—

receiving a parameter list from an “

aggregator”

processor, (iv) forming a file by “

crunching together”

the data-items according to the parameter list, (v) filtering out portions of the file which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity of micro-data-specific data-items, (vi) via the topology—

transmitting the file to the “

aggregator”

processor.

13. A Privacy Preserving Data-Mining Protocol, substantially as herein before described and illustrated, firstly characterized by having at least one mutually independent “

source-entity”

data processors respectively forming a file by “

crunching together”

data-items according to a parameter list, and thereafter respectively filtering out portions of the file which characterize details particular to less than a predetermined quantity of micro-data-specific data-items; and

secondly characterized by having a secure “

aggregator”

data processor aggregating the plurality of files into a data-warehouse.