A Dual Privacy Preserving Algorithm in Spatial Crowdsourcing

Abstract

Spatial crowdsourcing assigns location-related tasks to a group of workers (people equipped with smart devices and willing to complete the tasks), who complete the tasks according to their scope of work. Since space crowdsourcing usually requires workers’ location information to be uploaded to the crowdsourcing server, it inevitably causes the privacy disclosure of workers. At the same time, it is difficult to allocate tasks effectively in space crowdsourcing. Therefore, in order to improve the task allocation efficiency of spatial crowdsourcing in the case of large task quantity and improve the degree of privacy protection for workers, a new algorithm is proposed in this paper, which can improve the efficiency of task allocation by disturbing the location of workers and task requesters through k-anonymity. Experiments show that the algorithm can improve the efficiency of task allocation effectively, reduce the task waiting time, improve the privacy of workers and task location, and improve the efficiency of space crowdsourcing service when facing a large quantity of tasks.

Key Research Issues and Related Technologies in Crowdsourcing Data Collection

“…The data collected through crowdsourcing may contain a large amount of sensitive information, which is directly related to user privacy, such as the user's geographical location, travel trajectory, and personal preferences. This would cause serious security threats, although some studies have incorporated privacy-preserving techniques into task assignment [76,77], response aggregation [87], and incentive mechanisms [83,85]. However, in crowdsourcing, malicious participants or the platform may deceive other stakeholders.…”

“…Shen [74] designed a secure task assignment protocol using additively homomorphic encryption with the introduction of a semihonest third party. In contrast, [75][76][77][78] intend to protect both task privacy and worker privacy. References [76,78] proposed the task assignment based on the encrypted locations of workers and requesters by homomorphic encryption.…”

“…References [76,78] proposed the task assignment based on the encrypted locations of workers and requesters by homomorphic encryption. In [75,77], a dual privacy-preserving algorithm based on anonymity is proposed in task matching in spatial crowdsourcing.…”