Does Differential Privacy Protect Terry Gross' Privacy?

The concept of differential privacy was motivated through the example of Terry Gross’ height in Dwork (2006). In this paper, we show that when a procedure based on differential privacy is implemented, it neither protects Terry Gross’ privacy nor does it provide meaningful responses to queries. We also provide an additional illustration using income data from the US Census. These illustrations raise serious questions regarding the efficacy of using differential privacy based masking mechanism for numerical data.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: PSD
• Authors: Krishnamurty Muralidhar, Rathindra Sarathy
• Keywords: Database, Meaningful Responses, PSD 2010, Terry Gross, US Census