Over the last decade, we have witnessed a growing interest and increasing investments in technologies, applications, and system communications around the world. Almost every component in our entourage is being completely networked. With so much sensitive data being generated in the digital world, security and privacy continue to be seen as impediments refraining users from widely using these recent technologies and applications. While privacy is relatively easy to manage within simple client/server architecture, it becomes a significant challenge to ensure privacy in the era of Big Data, cloud computing, and smart applications.