Fuzzy clustering-based microaggregation to achieve probabilistic k-anonymity for data with constraints

Abstract

Microaggregation is an effective data-driven protection method that permits us to achieve a good trade-off between disclosure risk and information loss. In this work we propose a method for microaggregation based on fuzzy c-means, that is appropriate when there are constraints (linear constraints) on the variables that describe the data. Our method leads to results that satisfy these constraints even when the data to be masked do not satisfy them.