Privacy preservation in SMAC-social networking, mobile network, analytics and cloud computing

SMAC-Social Networking, Mobile Network, Analytics and Cloud Computing, is the latest buzz word in many established and upcoming organizations. Social Networking refers to an individual centered online portal to share personal profiles, preferences and make new friends or connections. The era of smartphones began a decade back but now it is at its peak with mobility and mobile networks a major part of every individual's life, thanks to the advancements in wireless technologies, mobile computing and usability engineering. Big Data and Analytics is a domain prevalent due to the large quantity of unstructured data generated on a day to day basis from which patterns are recognized, trends are known, forecasting is possible, user behavior is predicted and much more. Cloud Computing techniques elaborate the ways in which data can be stored and retrieved from a centralized location especially when the location is provided as a service to the user. Though the concepts, working procedure, target audience and need of each of the domains in SMAC is different, the challenge remains constant-Privacy preservation. This paper identifies the major challenges of privacy preservation and summarizes the techniques used, with pros and cons, in each domain.