Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28339683›Full record

ArticleJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2017

Addressing Beacon re-identification attacks: quantification and mitigation of privacy risks.

Jean Louis Raisaro, Florian Tramèr, Zhanglong Ji, Diyue Bu, Yongan Zhao, Knox Carey, David Lloyd, Heidi Sofia, Dixie Baker, Paul Flicek and 8 more

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
45citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
9.0field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

45 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Article
  4. The Portuguese Beacon: sharing genomic variant data safely.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

18 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.

Jean Louis RaisaroSchool of Computer and Communication Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Florian TramèrSchool of Computer and Communication Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Zhanglong JiHealth Science Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Diyue BuSchool of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Yongan ZhaoSchool of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Knox CareyGeneCloud, Intertrust, CA, USA.
David LloydEuropean Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, UK.
Heidi SofiaDivision of Genomic Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Dixie BakerMartin, Blanck and Associates, Alexandria, VA, USA.
Paul FlicekEuropean Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, UK.
Suyash ShringarpureDepartment of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Carlos BustamanteDepartment of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Shuang WangHealth Science Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Xiaoqian JiangHealth Science Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Lucila Ohno-MachadoHealth Science Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Haixu TangSchool of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
XiaoFeng WangSchool of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Jean-Pierre HubauxSchool of Computer and Communication Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Indiana University Bloomington · USUniversity of California, San Diego · USÉcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne · CHStanford University · USNational Institutes of Health · USWellcome Sanger Institute · GBWellcome Trust · GB

Funding

iDASH: Integrating Data for Analysis, Anonymization, and SharingU54HL108460 · NHLBI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI OHNO-MACHADO, LUCILA · 2010 to 2015
$19.1M
Training SubprojectU54HG007990 · NHGRI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ · PI HAUSSLER, DAVID H, PATTERSON, DAVID · 2014 to 2018
$14.8M
San Diego Biomedical Informatics Education & Research (SABER)T15LM011271 · NLM · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI SHAMIM NEMATI · 2012 to 2026
$9.7M
Encryption methods and software for privacy-preserving analysis of biomedical dataU01EB023685 · NIBIB · TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY · PI TANG, HAIXU, WANG, XIAOFENG · 2016 to 2018
$1.4M
SHARE: Statistical Health Information Release with Differential PrivacyR01GM114612 · NIGMS · EMORY UNIVERSITY · PI XIONG, LI · 2015 to 2017
$1.0M
Privacy preserving technologies for human genome data analysis and disseminationR01HG007078 · NHGRI · TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY · PI TANG, HAIXU, WANG, XIAOFENG · 2013 to 2015
$886k
Protection of Records: Privacy (PReP) Technology for Medical ResearchR00LM011392 · NLM · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI JIANG, XIAOQIAN · 2013 to 2015
$650k
Protecting the pRivacy Of Genomes in REsearch StudieS (PROGRESS)R00HG008175 · NHGRI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI WANG, SHUANG · 2016 to 2018
$527k
Protect Privacy of Healthcare Data in the CloudR21LM012060 · NLM · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI JIANG, XIAOQIAN · 2014 to 2015
$376k
Protecting the pRivacy Of Genomes in Research StudieS (PROGRESS)K99HG008175 · NHGRI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI WANG, SHUANG · 2014 to 2015
$100k
NHGRI NIH HHS K99 HG008175NHGRI NIH HHS R00 HG008175NHGRI NIH HHS R01 HG007078NHGRI NIH HHS U54 HG007990NHLBI NIH HHS U54 HL108460NIBIB NIH HHS U01 EB023685NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM114612NLM NIH HHS R00 LM011392NLM NIH HHS R21 LM012060NLM NIH HHS T15 LM011271Wellcome Trust 201535/Z/16/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) created the Beacon Project as a means of testing the willingness of data holders to share genetic data in the simplest technical context-a query for the presence of a specified nucleotide at a given position within a chromosome. Each participating site (or "beacon") is responsible for assuring that genomic data are exposed through the Beacon service only with the permission of the individual to whom the data pertains and in accordance with the GA4GH policy and standards.While recognizing the inference risks associated with large-scale data aggregation, and the fact that some beacons contain sensitive phenotypic associations that increase privacy risk, the GA4GH adjudged the risk of re-identification based on the binary yes/no allele-presence query responses as acceptable. However, recent work demonstrated that, given a beacon with specific characteristics (including relatively small sample size and an adversary who possesses an individual's whole genome sequence), the individual's membership in a beacon can be inferred through repeated queries for variants present in the individual's genome.In this paper, we propose three practical strategies for reducing re-identification risks in beacons. The first two strategies manipulate the beacon such that the presence of rare alleles is obscured; the third strategy budgets the number of accesses per user for each individual genome. Using a beacon containing data from the 1000 Genomes Project, we demonstrate that the proposed strategies can effectively reduce re-identification risk in beacon-like datasets.

Indexed as

Data AnonymizationGenetic PrivacyInformation DisseminationGenomicsHumansbeaconga4ghgenomic data sharinggenomic privacyre-identification

Identifiers

PMID28339683
PMCPMC5881894
OpenAlexW2573423285

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.