Guaranteeing anonymity of linked data graphs

摘要

A method, system and computer program product for transforming a Linked Data graph into a corresponding anonymous Linked Data graph, in which semantics is preserved and links can be followed to expand the anonymous graph up to r times without breaching anonymity (i.e., anonymity under r-dereferenceability). Anonymizing a Linked Data graph under r-dereferenceability provides privacy guarantees of k-anonymity or l-diversity variants, while taking into account and preserving the rich semantics of the graph.

主权项

1. A method to guarantee anonymity under r-dereferenceability in a Linked Data graph comprising:
transforming an original Linked Data graph structure having labeled nodes interconnected by directed edges into a corresponding anonymous Linked Data graph, with one or more nodes embodying a searchable Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and updating the corresponding ontology definitions of the Linked Data graph based on the applied transformations; iteratively expanding said corresponding anonymous Linked Data graph up to r times, where r is an integer>0, wherein said iteratively expanding comprises: dereferencing a searchable URI of a node of said anonymized Linked Data graph structure by following a link to a resource from which a further Linked Data graph structure is obtained, said further Linked Data graph structure having additional labeled nodes embodying additional searchable URIs and property values, and replacing the node embodying the searchable URI of the anonymized Linked Data graph structure with the further Linked Data graph structure to obtain an expanded Linked Data graph, and updating the corresponding ontology definitions of the expanded Linked Data graph to include the ontology definitions of the further Linked Data graph structure; determining from each said additional URIs and property values in said expanded corresponding anonymous Linked Data graph whether anonymity is breached by searching for a URI whose iterative dereferencing originates a graph containing a Linked Data graph node URI that was present in the original Linked Data graph, and making a URI determined as breaching said anonymity non-dereferenceable, wherein a computing system including at least one processor unit performs one or more of: the transforming, iteratively expanding, determining and said dereferencing.