Abstract: An approach is provided for device-side probe trajectory anonymization based on negative gapping. The approach involves, for example, collecting a probe trajectory stream from a sensor of a probe device, wherein the probe trajectory stream comprises a time-sequence of location data points representing a sensed movement of the probe device. The approach also involves generating a plurality of subtrajectory streams from the probe trajectory stream. The approach further involves processing the plurality of subtrajectory streams to create a negative gap between the plurality of subtrajectory streams. The approach further involves providing the plurality of subtrajectory streams as an output in place of the probe trajectory.

Abstract: An approach is provided for probe trajectory anonymization using based on a negative gap. The approach involves, for example, receiving a probe trajectory generated from at least one sensor of a probe device. The approach also involves processing the probe trajectory to segment the probe trajectory into a first subtrajectory and a second subtrajectory based on a negative gap between the first subtrajectory and the second subtrajectory. The negative gap specifies an amount of overlap between the end of the first subtrajectory and the beginning of the second subtrajectory. The approach further involves assigning a first pseudonym (e.g., a first new probe identifier) to the first subtrajectory, and a second pseudonym (e.g., a second new probe identifier) to the second subtrajectory. The approach then involves providing the first subtrajectory and the second subtrajectory as a trajectory anonymization output.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer program product are provided for estimating parking availability in an area based on probe data points in response to a request while maintaining data privacy. A method may include: receiving probe data associated with a plurality of vehicles; determining, from the probe data, location information, parking event information, and a timestamp; receiving a parking availability query, where the parking availability query includes a location; generating and transmitting a request for parking availability information corresponding to the location; receiving a plurality of partial results in response to the request for parking availability information corresponding to the location; determining, from the plurality of partial results, parking availability information corresponding to the location; and providing the parking availability information corresponding to the location responsive to the parking availability query.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to determine a semantic privacy index that quantifies the risk associated with re-identification of a trajectory following anonymization of the trajectory. In the context of a method, information regarding a trajectory is received. After the trajectory has been map matched to a portion of a road network, the method associates contextual information comprising one or more map features with the trajectory. The method also provides the information regarding the trajectory and the contextual information comprising the one or more map features to a risk estimation model in order to generate the semantic privacy index.