Preserving Data Privacy with Record Retrieval using Visual Cryptography and Encryption Techniques

Objectives: Secure data sharing using visual cryptography with selective retrieval upon key match is introduced in this paper. As an illustration, medical and student database is considered. Methods/Analysis: The original database is stored as relational database model. In shared data applications encryption is used to achieve privacy of sensitive (personal) data from unauthorized users. The work includes encryption, selective retrieval, retrieving records with matching markers, etc. The proposed system search records from queries in the encrypted domain itself. Findings: All application related operations like checking for some threshold value, searching for similar records across different users, etc. is included. Because of proposed system any leakage of information over retrieved set of documents is avoided. Existing searching algorithm requires O (n) comparisons (searching operations) at the server to evaluate if the database contains a chosen keyword. The communication overhead minimized between the user and server. The computation is minimized between server and user. It allows the multi-user to search over the encrypted data. Searching time is minimized by relational database management. From encrypted query server cannot, distinguish between documents, determine document contents, check for search keyword and extend beyond decrypted result. Novelty/Improvement: The algorithm is novel in the sense that uncorrelatedness among the different user's data is preserved, along with complete sharing.