The union-split algorithm and cluster-based anonymization of social networks

Knowledge discovery on social network data can uncover latent social trends and produce valuable findings that benefit the welfare of the general public. A growing amount of research finds that social networks play a surprisingly powerful role in people's behaviors. Before the social network data can be released for research purposes, the data needs to be anonymized to prevent potential re-identification attacks. Most of the existing anonymization approaches were developed for relational data, and cannot be used to handle social network data directly.