A METHOD FOR PRESERVING PRIVACY WITHIN A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND AN ACCORDING COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20160309322A1
• Filed: 12/05/2013
• Published: 10/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Europe Ltd
• Inventors: Bohli, Jens-Matthias, Karame, Ghassan, Li, Wenting, Dobre, Dan
• Granted Patent: US 9,955,346 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

A method for preserving privacy within a communication system, wherein a location-based service concerning an area of interest is provided for at least one user by a database server and wherein location information represented by coordinates of objects and/or users and/or areas and/or queries, made to the location-based service, is concealed, includes concealing the location information by transforming coordinates by first splitting the area of interest up in tiles for providing at least one tiling of the area of interest, and then permuting the tiles by a pseudo-random permutation process.

Claims

1. A method for preserving privacy within a communication system wherein a location-based service concerning an area of interest is provided for at least one user by a database server and wherein location information represented by coordinates of objects and/or users and/or areas and/or queries, made to the location-based service, is concealed, comprises:

concealing the location information by transforming coordinates by;

first splitting the area of interest up in tiles for providing at least one tiling of the area of interest, and

then permuting the tiles by a pseudo-random permutation process.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising, after permuting the tiles by pseudo-random permutation process, encrypting the area of interest by an order-preserving encryption process.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein three different filings are created.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the pseudo-random permutation process comprises one or more of a rotation of the tiles, a flipping of the tiles, or a shuffling of the tiles.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the rotation of the tiles comprises rotating each tile individually.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the flipping of the tiles comprises flipping each tile individually.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein a location privacy layer is used for a translation or transformation of the location information or coordinates.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the location privacy layer mediates the exchange of information between objects and/or users on one side and the database server on the other side.

9. The method according to claim 7, Wherein the location privacy layer judges and relays a location information input from an object and/or user to a tiling in which a movement of an object or user does not cross a boundary of a tile.

10. The method according to claim 2, wherein the order-preserving encryption process is applied to all tilings separately.

11. The method according to one claim 1, wherein the filings are each stored at different servers.

12. The method according to one claim 1, wherein the location-based service comprises a geo-fencing application.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the location-based service is provided using a cloud server.

14. A communication system, comprising:

a database server configured to provide a location-based service concerning an area of interest for at least one user, wherein location information represented by coordinates of objects and/or users and/or areas and/or queries, made to the location-based service, is concealed; and

a processor configured to conceal the location information by transforming coordinates by first splitting up the area of interest in tiles for providing at least one tiling of said area and to permute the tiles by a pseudo-random permutation process.

15. The communication system according to claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to encrypt the area of interest by an order-preserving encryption, process after the pseudo-random permutation process.