The Sparse Vector Technique (SVT) is a fundamental technique for satisfying differential privacy and has the unique quality that one can output some query answers without apparently paying any privacy cost. SVT has been used in both the interactive setting, where one tries to answer a sequence of queries that are not known ahead of the time, and in the non-interactive setting, where all queries...

We present a novel way to compare the statistical cost of privacy mechanisms using their Dobrushin coefficient. Specifically, we provide upper and lower bounds for the Dobrushin coefficient of a privacy mechanism in terms of its maximal leakage and local differential privacy guarantees. Given the geometric nature of the Dobrushin coefficient, this approach provides some insights into the genera...

2D Face images are traditionally used in civil governmental applications. An extension from 2D to 3D images will lead to several advantages when setting up automated authentication systems. However, privacy concerns of storing face images on smart cards or in databases will inhibit the acceptance of such systems. In this paper we concentrate on privacy enhancing technologies for biometric infor...

Health institutions have realized the importance of privacy engineering that focuses on development of guidelines, practices and models for the protection of patients’ privacy. However, due to the intricate healthcare systems with transitive health workflows, the processing of patient information in one setting may be more problematic than that in another. As a solution to this problem, we deco...

Title of dissertation: NEW NOTIONS AND MECHANISMS FOR STATISTICAL PRIVACY Adam Groce, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jonathan Katz Department of Computer Science Many large databases of personal information currently exist in the hands of corporations, nonprofits, and governments. The data in these databases could be used to answer any number of important questio...

Consider a data publishing setting for a data set with public and private features. The objective of the publisher is to maximize the amount of information about the public features in a revealed data set, while keeping the information leaked about the private features bounded. The goal of this paper is to analyze the performance of privacy mechanisms that are constructed to match the distribut...