Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender System

Ubiquitous smartphones with their built-in location services enable people to explore various points-of-interest (POIs) through location-based apps, e.g., Yelp and Foursquare City Guide. With these apps, users can receive personalized recommendations on nearby places, e.g., restaurants and arcades, which not only saves them searching time, but also helps find POIs that are of interest to them. One issue with these apps and almost all existing recommender systems is that they require users to share their preference data with the service providers. Such information, if not properly used, can leak users' privacy. This research aims to enhance user privacy protection in POI recommender systems.

Research Team

  • Current Members

    • Longin Cui, Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science, University of Kentucky, August 2019 – Present.
    • Dr. Ting Gu, Assistant Professor in Computer Science, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2022 – Present.

  • Past Members

    • Muhammad Bangash, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, January 2021 – Spring 2022.
    • Tho Tran, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, August 2021 – Spring 2022.
    • Behnaz Dehghanian, Master's student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, August 2020 – December 2021.
    • Luis Rosales, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, August 2021 – December 2021.
    • Mohammad Bilal, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, August 2020 – August 2021.
    • Wali Chaudhry, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, October 2020 – May 2021.
    • Raihan Ahmed, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Fall 2020.
    • Carlos Degollado, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2020.
    • Hiram Lin, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2020.
    • Isaac Espinoza, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2020.
    • Jonathan Carr, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2019 – Spring 2020.
    • Minh Nguyen, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2019 – Spring 2020.
    • Ian McNair, Master's student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Fall 2019.
    • Jesus Garcia, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Fall 2019.
    • Sana Kanwal, undergraduate student in Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2019.
    • Chen Tang, undergraduate student in Mathematics, Northeastern Illinois University, Summer 2019.

Publications

  • Longyin Cui, Xiwei Wang and Ting Gu. A Generic Data Synthesis Framework for Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender Systems. Submitted to The 32nd International Conference on Computer Communictions and Networks, March, 2023.
  • Longyin Cui and Xiwei Wang. A Cascade Framework for Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender System. Recommender Systems: Approaches, Challenges and Applications, a special issue of Electronics, Vol. 11, 7: 1153, March, 2022. [Paper]
  • Longyin Cui, Xiwei Wang, and Jun Zhang. Vendor-based Privacy-Preserving POI Recommendation Network. In Proceedings of the 14th EAI International Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications, 477-490. April, 2021.
  • Xiwei Wang, Minh Nguyen, Jonathan Carr, Longyin Cui, and Kiho Lim. A Group Preference-based Privacy-Preserving POI Recommender System. Information & Communications Technology Express, Vol.6, 3:204-208, September, 2020. [Paper]

Talks

  • Research Presentations

    • Xiwei Wang and Marcelo Sztainberg. Guiding Us throughout a Sea of Data - A Survey on Recommender Systems and Its Privacy Challenges. 10th Annual Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium. November, 2019.
    • Xiwei Wang. Privacy-Preserving POI Recommendation Using Nonnegative Matrix Factorization. 2018 IEEE Symposium on Privacy-Aware Computing. Washington D.C., USA. September, 2018.

  • Student Presentations

    • Muhammad Bangash, Mohammad Bilal, and Xiwei Wang. Improving the Prediction Accuracy for Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender Systems. 2022 Illinois LSAMP Symposium, February 2022.
    • Muhammad Bangash, Mohammad Bilal, and Xiwei Wang. Improving the Accuracy for Privacy-Preserving Point-Of-Interest Recommender Systems. 2021 SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference, October 2021.
    • Muhammad Bangash, Mohammad Bilal, and Xiwei Wang. Improving the Accuracy for Privacy-Preserving Point-Of-Interest Recommender Systems. 13th SCSE Student Research Symposium, Northeastern Illinois University, October 2021.
    • Longyin Cui, Xiwei Wang, and Jun Zhang. Vendor-based Privacy-Preserving POI Recommendation Network. 14th EAI International Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications, Virtual, April, 2021. [Video]
    • Behnaz Dehghanian and Xiwei Wang. Improving the Prediction Accuracy for Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender Systems. 2021 NEIU Student Research and Creative Activities Symposium, April 2021.
    • Behnaz Dehghanian and Xiwei Wang. Improving the Prediction Accuracy for Privacy-Preserving Point-of-Interest Recommender Systems. 2021 Illinois LSAMP Virtual Symposium, February 2021.
    • Carlos Degollado, Hiram Lin, Isaac Espinoza, Xiwei Wang, Marcelo Sztainberg, and Ahmed Khaled. Privacy-Preserving Recommender System. 2020 SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference, October 2020.
    • Carlos Degollado, Hiram Lin, Isaac Espinoza, Marcelo Sztainberg, Ahmed Khaled, and Xiwei Wang. Anonyrate Privacy-Preserving Recommender System. 12th SCSE Student Research Symposium, Northeastern Illinois University, October 2020.
    • Chen Tang, Minh Nguyen, Marcelo Sztainberg, and Xiwei Wang. Designing a Point-of-Interest Recommender System Using Matrix Factorization Techniques. 11th SCSE Student Research Symposium, Northeastern Illinois University, September 2019.
    • Jonathan Carr, Sana Kanwal, Xiwei Wang, and Marcelo Sztainberg. Using a Collaborative Filtering System to Predict User Preferences. 11th SCSE Student Research Symposium, Northeastern Illinois University, September 2019.