Intelligent privacy safeguards for the digital society

Abstract

The growth of the Internet and the pervasiveness of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have led to a radical change in our society, a deep economical, commercial and social impact on our lives. To date, most of our lives takes place online where algorithms shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. One of the drawbacks of this change is an increased risk for Internet users about their personal information privacy. Indeed an enormous amount of data is being generated and disseminated by people at high pace, often without knowing who is recording what about them. Online browsing, banking, shopping, social network interactions, and any type of online economic, social, personal collaboration and communication could undermine the individuals’ privacy due to a variety of factors that include not only the frightening increase of information leakage. Indeed, specific private information can be also inferred/extracted via computational heuristics applied on data (apparently unrelated to such information) users voluntarily disclose on the Internet. In particular, such privacy leaks can be caused by both (a) applications or software users intentionally use unaware of the related risks, and (b) malicious (illegal or unfair) practices stealthy perpetrated by “adversaries”. Therefore, securing private data, devices and user’s privacy in the digital society has become an utmost concern for individuals, business organizations, national governments and researchers. ... [edited by Author]