Using ontologies with hippocratic databases: A model for protecting personal information privacy

In the age of identity theft and the increased misuse of personal information held in databases, a crucial topic is the incorporation of privacy protection into database systems. Several initiatives have been created to address privacy protection in various forms, from legislation such as PIPEDA to policies such as P3P. Unfortunately, none of these effectively enforce protection of data. Recent solutions have emerged to enforcing data privacy & protection such as the Hippocratic database. But this technique has proved complex in practice. To overcome this deficiency we propose to use personal information ontologies in combination with Hippocratic databases. This method introduces a new way in reducing the complexity and in clearly identifying terms of privacy in the database architecture.