Privacy-Enhanced Linking

While computer scientists are uniquely situated to incorporate privacy protections in the link analysis algorithms they construct, most computer scientists are unaware of this opportunity and of ways to think about achieving needed protections. The work presented in this writing introduces a new way for computer scientists to think about providing privacy protection within link analysis and introduces the notion of “privacy-enhanced linking” as algorithms that perform link analysis with guarantees of privacy protection modeled after the Fair Information Practices. In this approach, privacy protection is realized by assessing the validity and interpretation of link analysis results such that inappropriate harm to individuals is provably minimized.