Personalized trajectory privacy-preserving method based on sensitive attribute generalization and location perturbation

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Trajectory data may include the user’s occupation, medical records, and other similar information. However, attackers can use specific background knowledge to analyze published trajectory data and access a user’s private information. Different users have different requirements regarding the anonymity of sensitive information. To satisfy personalized privacy protection requirements and minimize data loss, we propose a novel trajectory privacy preservation method based on sensitive attribute generalization and trajectory perturbation. The proposed method can prevent an attacker who has a large amount of background knowledge and has exchanged information with other attackers from stealing private user information. First, a trajectory dataset is clustered and frequent patterns are mined according to the clustering results. Thereafter, the sensitive attributes found within the frequent patterns are generalized according to the user requirements. Finally, the trajectory locations are perturbed to achieve trajectory privacy protection. The results of theoretical analyses and experimental evaluations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in preserving personalized privacy in published trajectory data.