How to Calculate the Information Privacy

Sabah S. Al-Fedaghi

Computer Engineering Department,

Kuwait University, Kuwait

General Objective

Building Private Information Theory that formalizes operations on pieces of private (personal) information and identifies relationships over private information in different domains of inquiry such as Private Information Ethics (PIE), Private Information Trust, Private Information Security, Private Information Ontology, Private Information (data) Mining, etc.

Claim: Private Information is a distinct object of study.

Example: Entropy in Information Ethics (IE) is ‘evil’ because it ‘destroys’ information, while in PIE it is ‘good’ because it ‘anonymizes’, hence, protects privacy.

Paper Objectives

1. Defining private information in terms of linguistic assertions.

2. Identifying the relationship between a person and his/her private information as a ‘proprietary’ right.

3. Characterizing some properties of Private Information

4. Defining a ‘unit’ of private information

5. Calculating relative informational privacy in terms of its units

WHAT IS PRIVATE INFORMATION?

NON-PRIVATE INFORMATION

An assertion that has no referent signifying individuals (:persons).

PRIVATE INFORMATION

(i) Atomic private information: An assertion that has a single referent signifying a single individual.

(ii) Compound private information: An assertion that has several referents signifying individuals.

Non-private assertions: Spare part ax123 is in store 5.

House at 1010 Palm street is burning.

Atomic assertions: John is a pilot

John’s house is burning

Compound assertions: John is the doctor of Mary

John, Jim, and Mary hate each other

PARTS EMPLOYEE PATIENT

NO. STORE

ax123 5

NAME TITLE

John Pilot

NAME DOCTOR

John May

Informational privacy:

Typical definition: Freedom from intrusion through collecting private information.

Our definition: The right to private information: The proprietary relationship between a proprietor and his/her private information which gives him/her the right to act as a permanent custodian of this information even it is in the possession of or owned by others.

“... personal information is a constitutive part of a me-hood …”.Floridi di Luciano

Proprietary relationship: Proprietor sees his/her private information as being their own to dispense with as he/she sees fit, even selling it; still retain the right to monitor its possession by others and take action if that possession is not appropriate.

Procession of private information is not Ownership, having Copyrighting, etc.

Proposition: Any compound private assertion is privacy-reducible to a set of atomic private assertions.

John, Jim, and Mary hate each other

?

Atomic assertions

: John hates someone, Someone hates John

: Jim hates someone, Someone hates Jim

: Mary hates someone, Someone hates Mary

(, , ) + non-private information

John and Jim love Mary

The significance of the intrinsic value of the private information (sensitivity) is an attribute of private information that should not be confused with the ontological definition (being) of private information based on referent’s identifiability and linguistic atomicity.

(Atomic) Private Information of an Individual

Proprietary NProprietary

His/her private Information Others Private Information

in his/her possession

Known NKnown

Sets of possessors Used to calculate

relative Information Privacy

To maximize your informational privacy:

Maximize NKnown

Minimize the number of possessors in Known

Minimize Possession of each possessor in Known

Assume a given set of atomic pieces of private information distributed between a proprietor and possessors of his/her private information:

Unit of private information = An atomic assertion

(|Individual.NKnown| + 1)

= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(|possessors| * | Other.Possession Individual.Known)| + 1)

For each agent possessing that individual’s private information

The equation divides the number of pieces of atomic private information that are only known by its proprietor, by the total number of pieces of atomic private information known by others about the proprietor. The multiplication is used in the denominator to make the equation sensitive to the number of

collectors.

Conclusion

- The definition of private information facilitates auto-recognition of private information (e.g., text mining).

- The proprietary right may have legal significance

(Al-Fedaghi, WEIS 2005)

- Informational privacy can be quantified.

- Private Information is a unique notion that can be applied in different domains such as ethics, trust, security, ontology, etc.

THANKS

TO

PST 2005 ORGANIZERS

REVIEWRS

AND

ATTENDEES