Controlling privacy loss in sampling schemes: an analysis of stratified and cluster sampling

Files
LIPIcs-FORC-2022-1.pdf(772 KB)
Published version
Date
2022-07-15
Authors
Bun, Mark
Gaboardi, Marco
McMillan, Audra
Sarathy, Jayshree
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
M. Bun, J. Drechsler, M. Gaboardi, A. McMillan, J. Sarathy. 2022. "Controlling Privacy Loss in Sampling Schemes: An Analysis of Stratified and Cluster Sampling" https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2022.1
Abstract
Sampling schemes are fundamental tools in statistics, survey design, and algorithm design. A fundamental result in differential privacy is that a differentially private mechanism run on a simple random sample of a population provides stronger privacy guarantees than the same algorithm run on the entire population. However, in practice, sampling designs are often more complex than the simple, data-independent sampling schemes that are addressed in prior work. In this work, we extend the study of privacy amplification results to more complex, data-dependent sampling schemes. We find that not only do these sampling schemes often fail to amplify privacy, they can actually result in privacy degradation. We analyze the privacy implications of the pervasive cluster sampling and stratified sampling paradigms, as well as provide some insight into the study of more general sampling designs
Description
License
© Mark Bun, Jörg Drechsler, Marco Gaboardi, Audra McMillan, and Jayshree Sarathy; licensed under Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0