Title: Location privacy via unlinkability: an alternative to cloaking and perturbation

Abstract: The usual approach to location privacy is to cloak and/or perturb the positions or trajectories of the mobile objects. However, if unlinkability of the various interactions between a mobile object and the service or control system can be afforded and achieved, neither cloaking nor perturbation are necessary. This results in higher privacy for the mobile object and better accuracy of the aggregated mobility information gathered by the service/control system. We illustrate the feasibility of approach in the scenario of car-to-car communication.

Bio: Josep Domingo-Ferrer is a Full Professor of Computer Science at Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona, Catalonia, where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy. He received with honors his M. Sc. and Ph. D. degrees in Computer Science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1988 and 1991 (Outstanding Graduation Award). He also holds a M. Sc. in Mathematics. His fields of activity are data privacy, data security and cryptographic protocols. In 2003, he was a co-recipient of a research prize from the Association of Telecom Engineers of Catalonia. In 2004, he got the TOYPS'2004 Award from the Junior Chambers of Catalonia. He has authored 3 patents and over 180 publications, one of which became an ISI highly-cited paper in early 2005. He is the coordinator of the CONSOLIDER INGENIO "ARES" team on security and privacy, one of Spain's 34 strongest research teams in all areas. He was the coordinator of EU FP5 project CO-ORTHOGONAL and of several Spanish funded and U. S. funded research projects. He has chaired or co-chaired 9 international conferences and has served in the program committee of over 50 conferences on privacy and security. He is an Associate Editor of three international journals and has been a Guest Editor of Computer Networks, IJUFKS, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery and Data and Knowledge Engineering. In 2004, he was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University. Prof. Domingo-Ferrer is the Secretary of IFIP WG 8.8 on Smart Cards and a Senior Member of IEEE.