A Survey on Security, Privacy, and Trust in Mobile Crowdsourcing

Abstract

With the popularity of sensor-rich mobile devices (e.g., smart phones and wearable devices), mobile crowdsourcing (MCS) has emerged as an effective method for data collection and processing. Compared with traditional wireless sensor networking, MCS holds many advantages such as mobility, scalability, cost-efficiency, and human intelligence. However, MCS still faces many challenges with regard to security, privacy, and trust. This paper provides a survey of these challenges and discusses potential solutions. We analyze the characteristics of MCS, identify its security threats, and outline essential requirements on a secure, privacy-preserving, and trustworthy MCS system. Further, we review existing solutions based on these requirements and compare their pros and cons. Finally, we point out open issues and propose some future research directions.