Leveraging the power of platforms, big data, and advanced analytics for species protection and the public good in a privacy-preserving, scalable, and sustainable manner
Modern tracking technology enables new ways of mining data in the wild. It allows wildlife monitoring centers to permanently collect geospatial data in a non-intrusive manner and in real time. Unfortunately, such sensible data is exposed to fraud and misuse and there is already a first reported case of "cyber-poaching." Based on stolen geospatial data, poachers can easily track and kill animals. Meanwhile, cautious monitoring centers limited data access for research and public use. We propose a novel privacy-preserving system to allow these monitoring centers to securely answer questions from the research community and the public while the raw data is protected against unauthorized third parties. Based on the core system, several new applications are conceivable, such as a mobile app for preventing conflicts between human and wildlife or for engaging people in wildlife donation. Besides providing a solution and working on specific use cases, the intention of this project is to start a discussion about the need for data protection in the animal world.