A formal semantics for P3P

Ting Yu, Ninghui Li, Annie I. Antón

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), developed by the W3C, provides an XML-based language for websites to encode their datacollection and data-use practices in a machine-readable form. To fully deploy P3P in enterprise information systems and over the Web, a well-defined semantics for P3P policies is a must, which is lacking in the current P3P framework. Without a formal semantics, a P3P policy may be semantically inconsistent and may be interpreted and represented differently by different user agents; it is difficult to determine whether a P3P policy is indeed enforced by an enterprise; and privacy policies from different corporations cannot be formally compared before information exchange. In this paper, we propose a relational formal semantics for P3P policies, which precisely and intuitively models the relationships between different components of P3P statements (i.e., collected data items, purposes, recipients and retentions) during online information collection. The proposed formal semantics is an important step towards improving P3P, making it more appropriate to be integrated with business practice and ultimately accelerating the large-scale adoption of P3P across the Internet.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2004 Workshop on Secure Web Service, SWS 2004
EditorsErnesto Damiani, Hiroshi Maruyama
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages1-8
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)158113973X, 9781581139730
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Oct 2015
Externally publishedYes
EventWorkshop on Secure Web Service, SWS 2004 - Fairfax, United States
Duration: 29 Oct 2015 → …

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2004 Workshop on Secure Web Service, SWS 2004

Conference

ConferenceWorkshop on Secure Web Service, SWS 2004
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityFairfax
Period29/10/15 → …

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