Approximate and Probabilistic Differential Privacy Definitions

Sebastian Meiser

Paper 2018/277

Approximate and Probabilistic Differential Privacy Definitions

Sebastian Meiser

Abstract

This technical report discusses three subtleties related to the widely used notion of differential privacy (DP). First, we discuss how the choice of a distinguisher influences the privacy notion and why we should always have a distinguisher if we consider approximate DP. Secondly, we draw a line between the very intuitive probabilistic differential privacy (with probability $1 - δ$ we have $ε$ -DP) and the commonly used approximate differential privacy ( $(ε, δ)$ -DP). Finally we see that and why probabilistic differential privacy (and similar notions) are not complete under post-processing, which has significant implications for notions used in the literature.

Note: Added important citation to Kifer et al.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Foundations
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: differential privacy foundations
Contact author(s): s meiser @ ucl ac uk
History: 2018-11-01: last of 3 revisions; 2018-03-22: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2018/277
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2018/277,
      author = {Sebastian Meiser},
      title = {Approximate and Probabilistic Differential Privacy Definitions},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2018/277},
      year = {2018},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/277}
}