K-Anonymity

What is K-Anonymity?

K-Anonymity is an early de-identification technique, involving grouping individuals with similar attributes to make them indistinguishable. It has been a trusted method for preserving privacy but is vulnerable to many privacy attacks.

Weaknesses of K-Anonymity:

Vulnerable to Re-identification:

K-Anonymity does not address the risk of re-identification. attackers can still identify individuals by combining quasi-identifiers from multiple data sources.

Homogeneity Risk:

Creating homogeneous groups to achieve K-Anonymity may result in a loss of data utility and accuracy of the analysis.

Privacy Attacks on K-Anonymity:

Attribute Disclosure:

Attackers can use external information or background knowledge to infer sensitive attributes from the anonymized data.

Linkage Attacks:

By combining anonymized data with publicly available data or auxiliary information, attackers can re-identify individuals within K-Anonymity groups.

Background Knowledge Attacks:

Attackers can exploit background information to reveal individual identities within K-Anonymity groups.