DIFFERENTIAL PRIVACY WITH CLOUD DATA

• US 20180198602A1
• Filed: 11/16/2017
• Published: 07/12/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Duffy, William T., Vyrros, Andrew H., Minadakis, Yannis, Byde, Andrew R., Pagallo, Giulia
• Granted Patent: US 11,496,286 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2107 File encryption
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/20 Natural language analysis semantic analysis of natural language G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/008 involving homomorphic encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0816 Key establishment, i.e. cryptographic processes or cryptographic protocols whereby a shared secret becomes available to two or more parties, for subsequent use

Abstract

Embodiments described herein enable data associated with a large plurality of users to be analyzed without compromising the privacy of the user data. In one embodiment, a user can opt-in to allow analysis of clear text of the user'"'"'s emails. An analysis process can then be performed in which an analysis service receives clear text of an email of a client device; processes the clear text of the email into one or more tokens having one or more tags; enriches one or more tokens in the processed email using data associated with a user of the client device and the one or more tags; and processes the clear text and one or more enriched tokens to generate a data set of one or more feature vectors.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a service, clear text of an email of a client device;

processing, by the service, the clear text of the email into a processed email, the processed email including one or more tokens having one or more tags;

enriching one or more tokens in the processed email using data associated with a user of the client device and the one or more tags; and

processing the clear text and one or more enriched tokens to generate a data set of one or more feature vectors.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to receiving the email, encrypting the clear text of the email into an encrypted email;

storing the encrypted email; and

decrypting the encrypted email before processing the clear text of the email.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user of the client device has opted-in to usage, by the service, of emails of the user, and the data associated with the user of the client device comprises one or more of a calendar and a contacts list.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

encrypting the data set of one or more feature vectors; and

generating a privatized data set from the encrypted one or more feature vectors.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

selecting one or more encrypted feature vectors from the privatized data set;

decrypting the selected, encrypted one or more feature vectors; and

transmitting the decrypted one or more feature vectors as a data set of feature vectors to the client device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the privatized data set is a differentially privatized data set.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data set of feature vectors is used by a natural language processing feature of an application.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the data set of feature vectors is used by a predictive text feature of an application.

9. A non-transitory computer readable medium programmed with instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by a service, clear text of an email of a client device;

processing, by the service, the clear text of the email into a processed email, the processed email including one or more tokens having one or more tags;

enriching one or more tokens in the processed email using data associated with a user of the client device and the one or more tags; and

processing the clear text and one or more enriched tokens to generate a data set of one or more feature vectors.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, the operations further comprising:

encrypting the clear text of the email, in response to receiving the email, the clear text of the email encrypted into an encrypted email;

storing the encrypted email; and

decrypting the encrypted email before processing the clear text of the email.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, the user of the client device having opted-in to usage, by the service, of data associated with the user of the client device, the data associated with the user of the client device including e-mail and one or more of:

a calendar and a contacts list.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, the operations further comprising:

encrypting the one or more feature vectors;

generating a privatized data set from the encrypted one or more feature vectors;

selecting one or more encrypted feature vectors from the privatized data set;

decrypting the selected, encrypted one or more feature vectors; and

transmitting the decrypted one or more feature vectors as a data set of feature vectors to the client device.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the privatized data set is a differentially privatize data set.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the data set of feature vectors is used by a natural language processing feature of an application or a predictive text feature of an application.

15. A system comprising:

a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions;

a processing system to execute instructions stored on the non-transitory machine-readable medium, the instructions to cause the processing system to;

receive clear text of an email of a client device;

process the clear text of the email into a processed email, the processed email including one or more tokens having one or more tags;

enrich one or more tokens in the processed email using data associated with a user of the client device and the one or more tags; and

process the clear text and one or more enriched tokens to generate a data set of one or more feature vectors.

16. The system of claim 15, the processing system further to:

encrypt the clear text of the email, in response to receiving the email;

store the encrypted email; and

decrypt the encrypted email before processing the clear text of the email.

17. The system of claim 15, the user of the client device having opted-in to usage of data associate with the user, the data associated with the user of the client device including email and one or more of a calendar and a contacts list.

18. The system of claim 15, the processing system further to:

encrypt the one or more feature vectors;

generate a privatized data set from the encrypted one or more feature vectors.

select one or more encrypted feature vectors from the privatized data set;

decrypt the encrypted one or more feature vectors into decrypted one or more feature vectors; and

transmit the decrypted one or more feature vectors as a data set of feature vectors to the client device.

19. The system as in claim 18, wherein the privatized data set is a differentially privatized data set.

20. The system of claim 15, the data set of feature vectors to be used by a natural language processing feature of an application or a predictive text feature of an application.