Privacy Manager Mediating Sensor Data Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems fail to effectively maintain user privacy in devices equipped with sensors, as they often reveal personal information when accessing location and contextual data, compromising user anonymity and privacy.
Innovation Solution
A privacy management system that determines requests for access to local data, processes privacy profile objects, and enforces privacy policies to control the granularity and access of sensitive information, using remote programmable objects and transformation rules to protect user data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If sensor data is accessed to provide navigation and video conferencing services, then service functionality is improved, but user privacy and anonymity are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a privacy manager as an intermediary component that sits between sensor data collection and application access. This privacy manager evaluates privacy policies, determines whether data access is permitted, and mediates the flow of sensitive information to applications, thereby enabling service functionality while protecting user privacy through policy-based control
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the data access control mechanism into distinct components: privacy policies, privacy profile objects, and enforcement rules. This segmentation allows granular control over different types of sensor data (location, images, sound) and enables selective access based on specific privacy rules for each data type and application
2Measurement precision
If detailed location information is provided to applications, then navigation accuracy is improved, but user anonymity is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different levels of data granularity for different applications and contexts. The privacy manager can permit high-precision location data for navigation applications while providing only coarse location information to other applications, thereby maintaining anonymity where full precision is not required while preserving accuracy where needed
3Productivity
If comprehensive data access is granted to applications, then service quality is improved, but privacy policy enforcement complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-defining privacy policies and privacy profile objects that encode access rules before data requests occur. These policies are established in advance and stored in the privacy manager, allowing automated enforcement decisions to be made quickly without complex real-time analysis, thereby reducing enforcement complexity while maintaining comprehensive control
Data Source
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AI summary
An approach for maintaining user privacy information is described. A privacy management platform determines a request, from one or more applications, for access to local data associated with a device. The platform then determines and processes one or more privacy profile objects associated with the local data to determine one or more privacy policies associated with the local data, the device, or a combination thereof. Enforcement of the one or more privacy policies is then caused for granting access to the local data.