The Uncertainty of Identity: Linking Spatiotemporal Information Between Virtual and Real Worlds

这是由计算机科学(圣安德鲁斯)、工程学(伦敦城市大学)和地理学(UCL)与美国普渡大学视觉分析专家合作提出的跨学科提案。我们的目标是将与“真实”和“虚拟”世界中的人类特征有关的信息联系起来，以便更好地管理建立人类身份并将其与地理位置联系起来所固有的不确定性。我们的基本前提是，可以通过以下方式管理和理解识别和定性个人的不确定性：(A)检测和探索生活方式和活动模式的时空轮廓；(B)将虚拟和真实领域中详细但未得到充分利用的数据集连接和合并；以及(C)征求和分析将物理身份和虚拟身份联系起来的众包志愿数据。通过这些行动，将有可能提高我们描述和验证个人身份的能力，推断连接真实领域和虚拟领域的个人和群体的更多信息概况，以及记录和管理这些任务中固有的不确定性。这一高度创新的研究议程的各个方面不可避免地存在风险和投机性，但在EPSRC‘WDYTYA’沙坑之后，我们评估了风险，检查了数据获取的可行性，并解决了道德审批问题。这项研究将需要有关用户在线活动的多种来源的数据(以下简称“虚拟”来源，如多个社交网络、商业信息、购买等)。以及更传统的数据(此后的“真实”来源：人口普查、姓名登记、电话簿、社会调查等)。系统的联系将被用来更好地解决“我认为你是谁？”我们建议开发互补的数据库和方法，以便将“真实”和“虚拟”财产联系起来，收集、协同和交叉验证新信息，并利用二级来源的价值。这将通过开发高效、有效、可扩展和安全使用的数据收集、维护、探索、分析和建模的新方法来实现。工作方案将通过在英国和美国的六个相互关联的工作包进行，即：工作包1：数据收集工具开发新的有效的虚拟数据收集工具工作包2：文本分析开发文本分析算法，以描述概念群或某些概念或命名实体之间的联系。工作包3：数据匿名化和隐私保护在加强数据收集(工作包1)和文本挖掘(工作包2)的好处与保护个人隐私的必要性之间取得平衡。工作包4：网络地理人口统计学使用主要数据(工作包1和2)和次要数据，将虚拟互联网流量与其可能产生的物理位置联系起来；发展稳健的、概括的和与物理位置有关的社会网络类型。工作包5：时空网络分析发展和应用时空网络分析技术，研究新出现的个人社会和地理网络及其使用的系统。工作包6：可视化分析部署了一系列可视化探索性数据分析技术，以提醒用户偏离趋势或平均行为和概况。Http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/UncertaintyOfIdentity/index.html

This is an interdisciplinary proposal from Computer Science (St. Andrews), Engineering (City University London) and Geography (UCL), in partnership with experts in Visual Analytics at Purdue University in the United States. Our goal is to link information pertaining to human characteristics in 'real' and 'virtual' worlds in order to better manage the uncertainties inherent in establishing human identity and linking it to geographic locations. Our basic premise is that uncertainty in identifying and characterising individuals may be managed and understood by: (a) detecting and exploring spatio-temporal profiles of lifestyles and activity patterns; (b) concatenating and conflating detailed, but under-exploited, datasets in the virtual and real domains; and, more speculatively (c) soliciting and analysing crowd-sourced volunteered data that link physical and virtual identities. Through these actions it will be possible to improve our ability to characterize and validate an individual's identity, to infer more informative profiles of individuals and groups that bridge the real and virtual domains, and to document and manage the uncertainties inherent in these tasks. Aspects of this highly innovative research agenda are inevitably risky and speculative, but following an EPSRC 'WDYTYA' Sandpit we have appraised risk, examined the feasibility of data acquisition and addressed ethical approval issues. The research will require multiple sources of data about a user's online activities (henceforth 'virtual' sources, such as multiple social networks, commercial information, purchases, etc.) alongside more conventional data (henceforth 'real' sources: population censuses, names registers, telephone directories, social surveys, etc.). Systematic linkage will be used to better resolve the question "Who do I think you are?" We propose the exploitation of complementary databases and methods in order to relate 'real' and 'virtual' properties, to glean, synergise and cross validate new information and to leverage value from secondary sources. This will be achieved by developing novel methods of data collection, maintenance, exploration, analysis and modelling, that are efficient, effective, scalable, and safe to use.The work programme will be undertaken through a programme of six inter-linked work packages in the UK and US, viz:Work Package 1: Data Collection Tools The development of new and effective tools for virtual data collectionWork Package 2: Text Analytics Development of text analytics algorithms to describe clusters of concepts, or associations between certain concepts or named entities. Work Package 3: Data Anonymisation and Privacy Preservation Achieving a balance between the benefits of enhanced data collection (Work Package 1) and text mining (Work Package 2) versus the imperatives of preserving individual privacy. Work Package 4: Cybergeodemographics Use of primary (Work Packages 1 and 2) and secondary data to relate virtual Internet traffic to the probable physical locations from which it emanated; and the development of typologies of social networks that are robust, generalized and related to physical locations.Work Package 5: Spatio-temporal Network Analysis Development and application of spatio-temporal network analysis techniques to emerging social and geographic networks of individuals and the systems used by them. Work package 6: Visual Analytics Deployment of a range of visual exploratory data analysis techniques to alert users to deviations from trend or average behaviour and profile. http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/UncertaintyOfIdentity/index.html