Assistant Professor Dr. Meisam Mohammady received an NSF grant through the inaugural Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Practice (PDaSP) program. This project, titled "A Holistic Privacy Preserving Collaborative Data Sharing System for Intelligent Transportation," addresses the growing need for privacy in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ISU will receive $232,000 from its share of the funding. The project will be led by the University of Connecticut and will work with the Department of Transportation, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, and the University of Washington.
What are Intelligence Transportation Systems?
ITS has become fundamental to modern transportation infrastructure. They play an important role in improving safety, efficiency, and mobility. It depends on vast, varied datasets to enable various applications, such as enabling adaptive traffic lights that respond to traffic patterns, GPS-based navigation apps that suggest alternative routes due to congestion or accidents, and smart parking systems that guide drivers to available spots.
The Current Privacy Challenges and Impact
One problem with ITS is the variation in data types such as GPS trajectories, video feeds, and sensor logs. Furthermore, there is a variety in how the data is stored and shared. As a result, there are no suitable privacy-preserving techniques in more data-sharing platforms for ITS. The data needs of applications and the need for privacy cannot both be met in the current environment. This has severely limited the access and sharing of information-rich data types, which are necessary for the further development of applications that depend on detailed data for optimal performance and safety. These applications include connected and automated vehicles and electric vehicles.
The PAIR Framework
To solve this problem, the research team will introduce PAIR. PAIR is a comprehensive framework designed to integrate both new and existing privacy-preserving techniques into ITS data workflows. PAIR will balance utility, privacy guarantees, efficiency, privacy auditability, and policy compliance. PAIR can then help support the development of the next generation of transportation systems that will be both intelligent and conscientious of user privacy.