Privacy-preserving handover mechanism in 4G

We propose a handover mechanism in the 4G heterogeneous network that preserves the privacy of the users. Since the base stations and relay nodes in 4G can be owned and operated by third parties, the footprints of the user can be exploited to obtain information about the movement and location of the users, which jeopardizes the user´s privacy. To overcome this and hide the real user´s ID, we propose to change the temporary identity (ID) of user equipment (UE) as well as the key that the UE uses in each access point to hide the real user´s ID. Our analysis shows that the proposed mechanism is secure and efficient while preserving the privacy.