Location Privacy-Preserving Mobile Crowd Sensing Using Pseudonyms Approach

Abstract

As mobile technology has advanced, the issue of privacy leakage has emerged as a primary area of study within the subject of mobile crowdsourcing. Therefore, this study presents two methods for protecting users' location privacy, each of which relies on anonymizing factors such pseudonyms and separate data collectors/senders. As a first step, we provide a well-known current method that involves transmitting data to a centralised server while using pseudonyms. After that, we provide a rather straightforward method called DDCS, which employs a distributed network of independent data collectors and transmitters (i.e., one user collects information and swaps with other user that transmits collected information to the central server or platform). Finally, we provide a hybrid method that combines pseudonyms with DDCS to improve privacy. The simulation results demonstrated that the hybrid strategy provides the highest level of privacy protection compared to the pseudonym-based approach and the DDCS.