Harmonizing information utility security and privacy through a public key identity framework

Abstract

newline Long after the foundational work on classical information theory by Claude Shannon in 1948, the field of information science has recently gained increasing interest, with a number of emerging technologies spinning out of it. Literature suggests research on various dimensions of information, including utility, security, and privacy. Effective management of information systems requires holistic modeling of these three attributes, starting from the requirements and design phases. Although there are phenomenal developments in each of these fields, as they occur in isolation, the inherent connections and tradeoffs between them are missing. The solutions developed in later stages to provide security and privacy were not sound. Such solutions are costly to implement in contrast to the accepted principles of security and privacy by design. Hence, these essential attributes, namely utility, security, and privacy (USP), must be considered when developing an integrated model of any information system. This thesis suggests identity as a measure for integrating these three attributes. newlineUtility is an important attribute of interest in any information system designed for individuals, organizations, or nations. Recent developments in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have enabled the identification of previously unseen patterns and meaningful signals from a large amount of data logged at an exponential rate. When applied to an individual user, this implies a more accurate classification or prediction for providing various useful services to the user. The more features one has about the user s dataset, the more accurate these classifications and predictions are, and hence, more utility.