University of Technology Sydney

41183 Privacy Preserving

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Information Technology: Computer Science
Credit points: 6 cp

Subject level:

Undergraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

Requisite(s): 48730 Cybersecurity OR 41181 Information Security and Management OR 41182 System Security OR 41184 Secure Programming and Penetration Testing

Description

This subject introduces students to the techniques for ensuring data privacy, while allowing organizations to collect, store, analyse, and share personal or confidential data. Various privacy models can be used to develop techniques to develop defences
against privacy attacks. Data anonymization and other statistical approaches to privacy and differential privacy are explored.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Identify and explain the most common privacy models that are used in various communities and organisations. (B.1)
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of existing privacy measures. (D.1)
3. Apply privacy preserving techniques appropriate to a variety of security configurations and scenarios. (D.1)
4. Work as a team to investigate a real‐world privacy breach in a corporate environment. (E.1)

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes specifically to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):

  • Socially Responsible: FEIT graduates identify, engage, interpret and analyse stakeholder needs and cultural perspectives, establish priorities and goals, and identify constraints, uncertainties and risks (social, ethical, cultural, legislative, environmental, economics etc.) to define the system requirements. (B.1)
  • Technically Proficient: FEIT graduates apply abstraction, mathematics and discipline fundamentals, software, tools and techniques to evaluate, implement and operate systems. (D.1)
  • Collaborative and Communicative: FEIT graduates work as an effective member or leader of diverse teams, communicating effectively and operating within cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural contexts in the workplace. (E.1)

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

Engineers Australia Stage 1 Competencies

This subject contributes to the development of the following Engineers Australia Stage 1 Competencies:

  • 1.3. In-depth understanding of specialist bodies of knowledge within the engineering discipline.
  • 2.2. Fluent application of engineering techniques, tools and resources.
  • 3.1. Ethical conduct and professional accountability.
  • 3.6. Effective team membership and team leadership.

Teaching and learning strategies

Students will on average spend 80 hours over the session undertaking learning and assessment activities for this subject. For on campus students this includes class time as described, designated activities in the practical sessions, assessment tasks, readings and study time. For distance students the time should be divided between online learning activities, discussion boards, designated activities in the practical sessions, assessment tasks, readings and study time.

Content (topics)

  1. Overview of privacy preserving
  2. Access control and encryption for privacy
  3. Anonymization and K-anonymity
  4. Differential privacy I
  5. Differential privacy II
  6. Personalized privacy
  7. Web browsing privacy
  8. Deepfake attack and countermeasures
  9. Federated learning and secure data aggregation
  10. Poisoning attack and counter measures
  11. Machine unlearning
  12. Subject review

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Report on privacy attacks

Intent:

1. through the assessment of student application of standard practice of attacking
2. through the assessment of evidence of teamwork skills in evaluating and planning testing
3. through the assessment of student awareness of ethical codes of conduct whilst working in the corporate environment
Objective(s):

This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs):

1, 2 and 4

This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):

B.1, D.1 and E.1

Type: Report
Groupwork: Group, group and individually assessed
Weight: 50%
Length:

This is a group task, the planning report should be approximately 2000?2500 words.

Assessment task 2: Privacy preserving project

Intent:

1. through the assessment of student ability and competence in using appropriate Privacy preserving technologies to defence the proposed attacks.
2. through the assessment of student ability to reflect and critically analyse experimental testing results before making well?informed conclusions.
Objective(s):

This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs):

1, 2 and 3

This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):

B.1 and D.1

Type: Case study
Groupwork: Individual
Weight: 50%
Length:

This is an individual assessment task. Students are required to submit a report of approximately 2000?2500 words along with exhibits to support findings.

Recommended texts

Shui Yu, and Lei Cui, Security and Privacy in Federated Learning. Springer 2023, ISBN 978-981-19-8691-8, pp. 1-122.