Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2013/826

Secure multi-party data analysis: end user validation and practical experiments

Dan Bogdanov and Liina Kamm and Sven Laur and Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt

Abstract: Research papers on new secure multi-party computation protocols rarely confirm the need for the developed protocol with its end users. One challenge in the way of such validation is that it is hard to explain the benefits of secure multi-party computation to non-experts. We present a method that we used to explain the application models of secure multi-party computation to a diverse group of end users in several professional areas. In these interviews, we learned that the potential users were curious about the possibility of using secure multi-party computation to share and statistically analyse private data. However, they also had concerns on how the new technology will change the data analysis processes. Inspired by this, we implemented a secure multi-party computation prototype that calculates statistical functions in the same way as popular data analysis packages like R, SAS, SPSS and Stata. Finally, we validated the practical feasibility of this application by conducting an experimental study that combined tax records with education records.

Category / Keywords: implementation / secure multi-party computation, end-user validation, privacy preserving statistical analysis

Date: received 5 Dec 2013

Contact author: liina at cyber ee

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20131206:203549 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2013/826