Preserving location and absence privacy in geo-social networks

Online social networks often involve very large numbers of users who share very large volumes of content. This content is increasingly being tagged with geo-spatial and temporal coordinates that may then be used in services. For example, a service may retrieve photos taken in a certain region. The resulting geo-aware social networks (GeoSNs) pose privacy threats beyond those found in location-based services. Content published in a GeoSN is often associated with references to multiple users, without the publisher being aware of the privacy preferences of those users. Moreover, this content is often accessible to multiple users. This renders it difficult for GeoSN users to control which information about them is available and to whom it is available. This paper addresses two privacy threats that occur in GeoSNs: location privacy and absence privacy. The former concerns the availability of information about the presence of users in specific locations at given times, while the latter con...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CIKM
• Authors: Dario Freni, Carmen Ruiz Vicente, Sergio Mascetti, Claudio Bettini, Christian S. Jensen
• Keywords: CIKM 2010, Information Technology, Multiple Users, Privacy, Privacy Threats