@Article{duepublico_mods_00077577,
  author = 	{Schnell, Rainer
		and Klingwort, Jonas
		and Farrow, James M.},
  title = 	{Locational privacy-preserving distance computations with intersecting sets of randomly labeled grid points},
  year = 	{2021},
  month = 	{Mar},
  day = 	{20},
  keywords = 	{Geographical data; Geo-referenced data; Geo-masking; Record-linkage; ISGP},
  abstract = 	{Background: We introduce and study a recently proposed method for privacy-preserving distance computa- tions which has received little attention in the scientific literature so far. The method, which is based on intersecting sets of randomly labeled grid points, is henceforth denoted as ISGP allows calculating the approximate distances between masked spatial data. Coordinates are replaced by sets of hash values. The method allows the computation of distances between locations L when the locations at different points in time t are not known simultaneously. The distance between L1 and L2 could be computed even when L2 does not exist at t1 and L1 has been deleted at t2. An example would be patients from a medical data set and locations of later hospitalizations. ISGP is a new tool for privacy-preserving data handling of geo-referenced data sets in general. Furthermore, this technique can be used to include geographical identifiers as additional information for privacy-preserving record-linkage. To show that the technique can be implemented in most high-level programming languages with a few lines of code, a complete implementation within the statistical programming language R is given. The properties of the method are explored using simulations based on large-scale real-world data of hospitals (n = 850) and residential locations (n = 13, 000). The method has already been used in a real-world application. Results: ISGP yields very accurate results. Our simulation study showed that---with appropriately chosen parameters -- 99 {\%} accuracy in the approximated distances is achieved. Conclusion: We discussed a new method for privacy-preserving distance computations in microdata. The method is highly accurate, fast, has low computational burden, and does not require excessive storage. Keywords: Geographical data, Geo-referenced data, Geo-masking, Record-linkage, ISGP},
  note = 	{<p>The publication of this article was supported by the Publication Fund of the University of Duisburg-Essen.</p>

<p>Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.</p>},
  note = 	{<p>Schnell, R., Klingwort, J. {\&}amp; Farrow, J.M. Locational privacy-preserving distance computations with intersecting sets of randomly labeled grid points. <em>Int J Health Geogr</em> <strong> 20</strong>, 14 (2021). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-021-00268-y">https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-021-00268-y</a></p>

<p>Published 20 March 2021</p>},
  note = 	{Version of Record / Verlagsversion},
  doi = 	{10.1186/s12942-021-00268-y},
  url = 	{https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/receive/duepublico_mods_00077577},
  url = 	{https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-021-00268-y},
  file = 	{:https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/duepublico_derivate_00077228/Int_J_Health_Geogr_2021_20_14.pdf:PDF},
  language = 	{en}
}