Cloaking Algorithms

Definition

Spatial cloaking is a technique used to blur a user's exact location into a spatial region in order to preserve her location privacy. The blurred spatial region must satisfy the user's specified privacy requirement. The most widely used privacy requirements are k-anonymity and minimum spatial area. The k-anonymity requirement guarantees that a user location is indistinguishable among k users. On the other hand, the minimum spatial area requirement guarantees that a user's exact location must be blurred into a spatial region with an area of at least $\mathcal{A}$, such that the probability of the user being located in any point within the spatial region is $1/\mathcal{A}$. A user location must be blurred by a spatial cloaking algorithm either on the client side or a trusted third-party before it is submitted to a location-based database server.

Main Text

This article surveys existing spatial cloaking techniques for preserving users' location privacy in location-based...