US Patent 10296761 Database privacy protection devices, methods, and systems

A system for reducing the information content of a data stream according to privacy requirements that vary according to referents of the data while maximizing the utility of the data stream in the aggregate. In embodiments, a receiver of data characterizing multiple referents extracts information such as statistics. A filter may reduce the information content of the data to reduce the probability that the receiver could uniquely identify any single referent from the data, according to privacy requirements that vary by the referent. The filter allows this to be done in a way that allows the utility of the data to be maximized when the permitted probability of identification varies among the referents.