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Differentially private linear queries on histograms

  • US 10,540,519 B2
  • Filed: 10/24/2018
  • Issued: 01/21/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A computer system comprising:

  • one or more hardware processors; and

    one or more computer-readable hardware storage devices having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the computer system to anonymize data by imposing differential privacy constraints on the data by causing the computer system to;

    receive a query directed to a dataset that includes confidential information, wherein the received query is received from a source that is not authorized to directly view the confidential information;

    execute the received query against the dataset to obtain an answer to the received query, wherein the answer includes at least some of the confidential information;

    after obtaining the answer and before returning the answer to the source, apply a privacy error to the at least some confidential information included in the answer, wherein determining an amount of the privacy error to apply to the at least some confidential information is based on a sparsity of entries included in the dataset, and such that the privacy error is reduced when querying relatively smaller sized datasets than relatively larger datasets; and

    after applying the privacy error to the at least some confidential information included in the answer, return the answer to the source.

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