Practical Considerations for Differential Privacy

TL;DR

This paper discusses the practical challenges of implementing differential privacy in real-world data applications, despite its strong theoretical guarantees and widespread recognition as a privacy standard.

Contribution

It identifies key obstacles hindering the adoption of differential privacy in everyday data practices and offers insights into overcoming these challenges.

Findings

Practical obstacles limit differential privacy adoption

Implementation complexity affects real-world use

Addressing obstacles can enhance privacy practices

Abstract

Differential privacy is the gold standard for statistical data release. Used by governments, companies, and academics, its mathematically rigorous guarantees and worst-case assumptions on the strength and knowledge of attackers make it a robust and compelling framework for reasoning about privacy. However, even with landmark successes, differential privacy has not achieved widespread adoption in everyday data use and data protection. In this work we examine some of the practical obstacles that stand in the way.