Dataset Protection via Watermarked Canaries in Retrieval-Augmented LLMs

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Liu, Yepeng, Zhao, Xuandong, Song, Dawn, Bu, Yuheng
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Liu, Yepeng
Zhao, Xuandong
Song, Dawn
Bu, Yuheng
author_facet Liu, Yepeng
Zhao, Xuandong
Song, Dawn
Bu, Yuheng
contents Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has become an effective method for enhancing large language models (LLMs) with up-to-date knowledge. However, it poses a significant risk of IP infringement, as IP datasets may be incorporated into the knowledge database by malicious Retrieval-Augmented LLMs (RA-LLMs) without authorization. To protect the rights of the dataset owner, an effective dataset membership inference algorithm for RA-LLMs is needed. In this work, we introduce a novel approach to safeguard the ownership of text datasets and effectively detect unauthorized use by the RA-LLMs. Our approach preserves the original data completely unchanged while protecting it by inserting specifically designed canary documents into the IP dataset. These canary documents are created with synthetic content and embedded watermarks to ensure uniqueness, stealthiness, and statistical provability. During the detection process, unauthorized usage is identified by querying the canary documents and analyzing the responses of RA-LLMs for statistical evidence of the embedded watermark. Our experimental results demonstrate high query efficiency, detectability, and stealthiness, along with minimal perturbation to the original dataset, all without compromising the performance of the RAG system.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_10673
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dataset Protection via Watermarked Canaries in Retrieval-Augmented LLMs
Liu, Yepeng
Zhao, Xuandong
Song, Dawn
Bu, Yuheng
Cryptography and Security
Computation and Language
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has become an effective method for enhancing large language models (LLMs) with up-to-date knowledge. However, it poses a significant risk of IP infringement, as IP datasets may be incorporated into the knowledge database by malicious Retrieval-Augmented LLMs (RA-LLMs) without authorization. To protect the rights of the dataset owner, an effective dataset membership inference algorithm for RA-LLMs is needed. In this work, we introduce a novel approach to safeguard the ownership of text datasets and effectively detect unauthorized use by the RA-LLMs. Our approach preserves the original data completely unchanged while protecting it by inserting specifically designed canary documents into the IP dataset. These canary documents are created with synthetic content and embedded watermarks to ensure uniqueness, stealthiness, and statistical provability. During the detection process, unauthorized usage is identified by querying the canary documents and analyzing the responses of RA-LLMs for statistical evidence of the embedded watermark. Our experimental results demonstrate high query efficiency, detectability, and stealthiness, along with minimal perturbation to the original dataset, all without compromising the performance of the RAG system.
title Dataset Protection via Watermarked Canaries in Retrieval-Augmented LLMs
topic Cryptography and Security
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.10673