Differential privacy
Differential privacy (DP) is a wide-ranging paradigm for statistically-guaranteed data privacy. The Privacy Engineering Team at the Wikimedia Foundation is currently exploring various uses for DP at WMF. This page (and its subpages) intend to document project statuses, design decisions, and potential future directions.
Available datasets
editDifferentially private dataset | Date range / granularity | Download | Documentation |
---|---|---|---|
Pageviews | Historical (pre-2017) | Data download | README |
Pageviews | Historical (9 Feb 2017 – 5 Feb 2023) | Data download | README |
Pageviews | Current (6 Feb 2023 – present) | Data download | README |
Geoeditors | Weekly | Data download | README |
Geoeditors | Monthly | Data download | README |
Docs and educational materials
editOther materials relevant to differential privacy efforts at WMF, including statements of purpose, docs, and educational materials.
Docs
editExternal documentation
editCode repositories
edit- Gitlab repository where most differential privacy work is taking place at WMF
- Gitlab repository where differential privacy scripts are productionized
- Gitlab repository where differential privacy work is automated
Educational materials
editFor a broad introduction to differential privacy as a concept, reading this series of blog posts on the subject is strongly recommended. Damien Desfontaines takes the reader through most of the need-to-know concepts of differential privacy.
Other presentations/educational materials are available below:
- WMF Diff blog post from 2023 June: "New Dataset Uncovers Wikipedia Browsing Habits While Protecting Users"
- Algorithmic approaches to privacy at WMF (2 June 2021)
- Differential privacy at WMF (18 May 2022)
- Differential privacy vs K-anonymity
- PEPR 2022 Differential Privacy Slides (23 June 2022)
- WMF Differential Privacy Webinar 1
- WMF Differential Privacy Webinar 2
- WMF Differential Privacy Webinar 3
- WMF Differential Privacy Webinar 4
Active DP projects
editA list of DP projects that are actively being worked on, along with relevant documentation.
Completed DP projects
editA list of DP projects that have been completed and are currently being monitored for continued performance.
- Country-project-page
- Country-project-page-historical
- Country-project-page-historical/Problem statement
- Country-project-page/Problem statement
- Country-project-page/User filtering
- GDI Equity Dashboard
- GDI Equity Dashboard/Problem statement
- Geoeditors
- Geoeditors/Feasibility report
- Russian editor information (2022-23)
Proposed DP projects
editA list of DP projects that may be worked on in the future.