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Research PaperResearchia:202610.19012

Task-aware Kernel Stein certificates for Rényi differential privacy

Leoni Carla Wirth

Abstract

Rènyi differential privacy, based on Rènyi divergence, has become a notion of choice for privacy guarantees. However, outside the Gaussian setting, Rènyi divergence can be difficult to compute. In particular, Rènyi differential privacy guarantees that exploit task-specific information, as in Rènyi Pufferfish privacy, can be challenging. Here we use kernel Stein discrepancies based on escort distributions to provide certificates for Rènyi differential privacy. By designing the kernel to focus on ...

Submitted: October 19, 2026Subjects: Cybersecurity; Computer Science

Description / Details

Rènyi differential privacy, based on Rènyi divergence, has become a notion of choice for privacy guarantees. However, outside the Gaussian setting, Rènyi divergence can be difficult to compute. In particular, Rènyi differential privacy guarantees that exploit task-specific information, as in Rènyi Pufferfish privacy, can be challenging. Here we use kernel Stein discrepancies based on escort distributions to provide certificates for Rènyi differential privacy. By designing the kernel to focus on the relevant privacy directions, we also derive task-aware privacy certificates. We provide exact identities for Gaussian and Laplace mechanisms and bounds for exponential mechanisms, with separate task-aware guarantees. A real data set example illustrates how the protected comparison set and the released subspace jointly determine the resulting certificates.


Source: arXiv:2610.23798v1 - http://arxiv.org/abs/2610.23798v1 PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.23798v1 Original Link: http://arxiv.org/abs/2610.23798v1

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Submission Info
Date:
Oct 19, 2026
Topic:
Computer Science
Area:
Cybersecurity
Comments:
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