Privacy Data Association Using Irreversible IDs and Double Encryption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing privacy protection technologies fail to adequately address the generation of statistical information from user data without disclosing personal information, as they require selective data disclosure limitation, reversible encryption processes that can be restored, and do not fully exclude individual correspondence relations.
Innovation Solution
A privacy protection data association system that performs irreversible conversion and double encryption using self- and partner encryption keys, along with disclosure limitation, to generate statistical information without revealing personal information, by associating multiple devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If reversible encryption process is used to protect personal information, then encryption security is improved, but possibility of restoration remains which compromises privacy protection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the encryption parameter from reversible to irreversible by introducing a salt value that is discarded after hashing. The user ID is converted using a hash function with salt (e.g., SHA-256(salt + user ID)), and the salt is deleted. This irreversible conversion ensures that even with the hash algorithm, the original user ID cannot be restored, eliminating the security vulnerability of reversible encryption while maintaining encryption security.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If disclosure limitation is applied to all user data, then privacy protection is improved, but statistical analysis capability deteriorates due to lack of disclosable data
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces double-encrypted de-identified data as an intermediary form. The system performs irreversible conversion on user IDs and encryption on personal information to create de-identified data, then applies double encryption (first with own encryption key, then with partner's encryption key) to create an intermediary data form that can be safely exchanged and analyzed statistically without revealing original personal information or user IDs, thus enabling both privacy protection and statistical analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the data state parameters through a multi-stage transformation: original user data (with PII) → de-identified data (irreversible conversion of user ID, encryption of personal information) → double-encrypted de-identified data (first encryption layer with own key, second encryption layer with partner's key). This parameter transformation enables the data to serve dual purposes: maintaining privacy through irreversible conversion while enabling statistical analysis through the encrypted intermediary form.
3Reliability
If multiple encryption keys are used for double encryption, then security is improved, but device complexity increases due to key exchange and management requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a self-service key management mechanism where each device generates its own encryption key and uses it to encrypt its de-identified data. When exchanging data with a partner device, each device encrypts the received data with its own key. The system automatically manages the key exchange process without requiring complex centralized key management infrastructure, as each device independently manages its own keys and performs encryption/decryption operations on received data.
Data Source
AI summary
In a privacy protection data association system including devices (10A, 10B) which maintain user data including a user ID and personal information, each device includes: a de-identification processing unit (11) which performs an irreversible conversion process on the user ID and a privacy protection process on the personal information and generates de-identified data corresponding to the user data satisfying target user conditions; an encryption unit (12) which generates double-encrypted de-identified data using a self-encryption key and a partner encryption key in cooperation between its own device and a partner device without disclosing the keys; an aggregation processing unit (13) which compares data generated by the two devices and aggregates the number of data whose user ID parts match each other, as the number of target users; and a disclosure limitation processing unit (14) which generates disclosure limited statistical information by performing a disclosure limitation process for an aggregating result.