Patent ID: 9262480
Filing Date: 2016-02-16
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A computer-implemented method of ensuring small cell privacy at a database level, the computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a request for a set of entries that make up a small cell in a database, wherein the small cell is initially described at a fine granular level of detail by a set of descriptors, wherein the fine granular level of detail describes details of a private medical condition of a person, and wherein the private medical condition is a disease that, if made public, will cause harm to a reputation of the person; determining a total count of entries in the small cell; determining a privilege level of a requester of the small cell in the database; in response to the total count being below a predetermined limit and in response to the requester's privilege level prohibiting transmission of data described by the fine granular level of detail to the requester of the small cell, modifying the set of descriptors in accordance with the privilege level of the requester of the small cell, wherein a higher privilege level results in providing fine-grained data from the small cell to the requester, wherein a lower privilege level results in providing coarse-grained data from the small cell to the requester, wherein modifying the set of descriptors reduces the fine granular level of detail to a coarse granular level of detail to protect privacies of individuals described by the set of entries, and wherein the coarse granular level of detail hides the details of the private medical condition of the person; in response to determining that the privilege level of the requester of the small cell prohibits transmission of the coarse-grained data to the requester, replacing details of different private medical conditions for each of multiple patients with a summary of an overall health status of the multiple patients; and transmitting the summary to the requester.