Snap Inc.
Data privacy using a podium mechanism

Abstract:

Systems and methods are provided for generating noise in user data to generate privatized data. The systems and methods generate the privatized data by performing operations comprising: storing a set of input data; generating a noise distribution based on a two-step function, wherein a height of the two-step function is determined by a privacy parameter, a width of the two-step function is determined by minimizing a variance of the noise distribution, and wherein a mean of the two-step function is determined by a value of the set of input data to be privatized; applying the noise distribution to the set of input data to generate privatized noisy output data; and transmitting the resulting privatized noisy output data in response to a request for a portion of, or a complete set of, the input data.