• Findings selected to be presented to MPs in Westminster
  • Part of €2.5m European research programme

Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre and The Open University have developed a model which could be used to strengthen user privacy amongst online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The findings have been selected from approximately 500 entries to be presented this week (Monday 9th March) by postdoctoral researcher Dr Mu Yang to Members of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster under the SET for Britain programme, which is designed to showcase ground breaking research by early career researchers.

The development is the result of a European Research Council Advanced Grant worth €2.5m, which was awarded to the leader of the project, Lero researcher Bashar Nuseibeh, who is Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Limerick and a Professor of Computing at The Open University.

“Over 1.3 billion active Facebook users share more than 30 billion items of information every month,” commented Professor Nuseibeh. “The big problem is that they have limited control over where this data ends up. Once information is sent to selected friends, users lose control over it.”

Professor Nuseibeh suggests that most users use default privacy settings, which may lead to information being shared to unintended members of social network groups regardless of their variable risk profiles. “Even more privacy aware users may still make wrong sharing decisions due to a lack of information about privacy threats and the consequences of sharing.”

Lero and The Open University have developed the first phase of an adaptive sharing model that recommends the appropriate audience for any particular posting. The model incorporates metrics for trading off the privacy risk against the social benefit derived from sharing.

“Our research has the potential to benefit not only individual users who want to protect their privacy, but also the online social network providers themselves who may need to respond more effectively to user concerns or future regulatory requirements,” added Professor Nuseibeh.

The research paper, entitled “Adaptive Sharing for Online Social Networks: A Trade-off between Privacy Risk and Social Benefit” reporting the detailed findings of the research, was presented at the 13th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications in Beijing, China, in September 2014, where it received the Best Paper Award.

Lero (www.lero.ie) is a global leader in software engineering research. It combines the best in Irish software talent by bringing together researchers from Dublin City University, Dundalk Institute of Technology, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, University College Dublin and University of Limerick. It is funded by Science Foundation Ireland as well as by contracts from Irish and international technology corporations.