Privacy-aware location database service for granular queries

Abstract

Future mobile markets are expected to increasingly embrace location-based services. This paper presents a new system architecture for location-based services, which consists of a location database and distributed location anonymizers. The service is privacy-aware in the sense that the location database always maintains a degree of anonymity. The location database service permits three different levels of query and can thus be used to implement a wide range of location-based services. Furthermore, the architecture is scalable and employs simple functions that are similar to those found in general database systems. © 2009 Springer.