Secure Conformance Checking using Token-based Replay and Homomorphic Encryption

TL;DR

This paper introduces a privacy-preserving method for conformance checking in process mining, combining token-based replay with homomorphic encryption to protect sensitive log data.

Contribution

It presents a novel secure approach that enables conformance checking without revealing sensitive information, using homomorphic encryption with token-based replay.

Findings

Evaluation with synthetic log demonstrates practicality

Method effectively preserves log confidentiality during conformance checking

Approach extends privacy in process mining applications

Abstract

Conformance checking, one of the main process mining operations, aims to identify discrepancies between a process model and an event log. The model represents the expected behaviour, whereas the event log represents the actual process behaviour as captured in information systems' records. Traditionally, the process model and the event log are both accessible to the business analyst performing the conformance checking. However, in some contexts the log's owner may want to protect critical or sensitive information in the log and still check its conformance with respect to a model belonging to another party. In this paper, we propose a secure approach to conformance checking based on the well-known token-based replay algorithm and homomorphic encryption. An evaluation is performed using a synthetic log, showing the practicality of the proposed technique.