Locally private k-means clustering

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We design a new algorithm for the Euclidean k-means problem that operates in the local model of differential privacy. Unlike in the non-private literature, differentially private algorithms for the k-means objective incur both additive and multiplicative errors. Our algorithm significantly reduces the additive error while keeping the multiplicative error the same as in previous state-of-the-art results. Specifically, on a database of size n, our algorithm guarantees O(1) multiplicative error and ≈ n1=2+a additive error for an arbitrarily small constant a > 0. All previous algorithms in the local model had additive error ≈ n2=3+a. Our techniques extend to k-median clustering. We show that the additive error we obtain is almost optimal in terms of its dependency on the database size n. Specifically, we give a simple lower bound showing that every locally-private algorithm for the k-means objective must have additive error at least ≈ √ n.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Machine Learning Research
Volume22
StatePublished - 1 May 2021

Keywords

  • Clustering
  • Differential privacy
  • K-means
  • K-median
  • Local model

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Statistics and Probability

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