Shaojie Min1, Yaxiao Luo1, Kebing Liu1, Qingyuan Gong2, Yang Chen1,*
CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.2, pp. 1-23, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.073175
- 09 December 2025
Abstract User identity linkage (UIL) across online social networks seeks to match accounts belonging to the same real-world individual. This cross-platform mapping enables accurate user modeling but also raises serious privacy risks. Over the past decade, the research community has developed a wide range of UIL methods, from structural embeddings to multimodal fusion architectures. However, corresponding adversarial and defensive approaches remain fragmented and comparatively understudied. In this survey, we provide a unified overview of both mapping and anti-mapping methods for UIL. We categorize representative mapping models by learning paradigm and data modality, and systematically compare them… More >