An Argumentation Approach for Resolving Privacy Disputes in Online Social Networks

Abstract

Preserving users’ privacy is important for Web systems. In systems where transactions are managed by a single user, such as e-commerce systems, preserving privacy of the transactions is merely the capability of access control. However, in online social networks, where each transaction is managed by and has effect on others, preserving privacy is difficult. In many cases, the users’ privacy constraints are distributed, expressed in a high-level manner, and would depend on information that only becomes available over interactions with others. Hence, when a content is being shared by a user, others who might be affected by the content should discuss and agree on how the content will be shared online so that none of their privacy constraints are violated. To enable this, we model users of the social networks as agents that represent their users’ privacy constraints as semantic rules. Agents argue with each other on propositions that enable their privacy rules by generating facts and assumptions from their ontology. Moreover, agents can seek help from others by requesting new information to enrich their ontology. Using assumption-based argumentation, agents decide whether a content should be shared or not. We evaluate the applicability of our approach on real-life privacy scenarios in comparison with user surveys.