``We Need a Standard'': Toward an Expert–Informed Privacy Label for Differential Privacy
Authors: Onyinye Dibia (University of Vermont), Mengyi Lu (University of Vermont), Prianka Bhattacharjee (University of Vermont), Joseph Near (University of Vermont), Yuanyuan Feng (University of Vermont)
Volume: 2026
Issue: 1
Pages: 43–64
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2026-0004
Abstract: The increasing adoption of differential privacy (DP) leads to public-facing DP deployments by both government agencies and companies. However, real-world DP deployments often do not fully disclose their privacy guarantees, which vary greatly between deployments. Failure to disclose certain DP parameters can lead to misunderstandings about the strength of the privacy guarantee, undermining the trust in DP. In this work, we seek to inform future standards for communicating the privacy guarantees of DP deployments. Based on semi-structured interviews with 12 DP experts, we identify important DP parameters to communicate privacy guarantees for transparency and trust. We further elaborate why and how these parameters should be disclosed according to expert consensus.
Keywords: differential privacy, privacy, usability
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