Secret-Protected Evolution for Differentially Private Synthetic Text Generation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Wang, Tianze, Chen, Zhaoyu, Du, Jian, Xiao, Yingtai, Zhang, Linjun, Yan, Qiang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Wang, Tianze
Chen, Zhaoyu
Du, Jian
Xiao, Yingtai
Zhang, Linjun
Yan, Qiang
author_facet Wang, Tianze
Chen, Zhaoyu
Du, Jian
Xiao, Yingtai
Zhang, Linjun
Yan, Qiang
contents Text data has become extremely valuable on large language models (LLMs) and even lead to general artificial intelligence (AGI). A lot of high-quality text in the real world is private and cannot be freely used due to privacy concerns. Therefore, differentially private (DP) synthetic text generation has been proposed, aiming to produce high-utility synthetic data while protecting sensitive information. However, existing DP synthetic text generation imposes uniform guarantees that often overprotect non-sensitive content, resulting in substantial utility loss and computational overhead. Therefore, we propose Secret-Protected Evolution (SecPE), a novel framework that extends private evolution with secret-aware protection. Theoretically, we show that SecPE satisfies $(\mathrm{p}, \mathrm{r})$-secret protection, constituting a relaxation of Gaussian DP that enables tighter utility-privacy trade-offs, while also substantially reducing computational complexity relative to baseline methods. Empirically, across the OpenReview, PubMed, and Yelp benchmarks, SecPE consistently achieves lower Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) and higher downstream task accuracy than GDP-based Aug-PE baselines, while requiring less noise to attain the same level of protection. Our results highlight that secret-aware guarantees can unlock more practical and effective privacy-preserving synthetic text generation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_10990
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Secret-Protected Evolution for Differentially Private Synthetic Text Generation
Wang, Tianze
Chen, Zhaoyu
Du, Jian
Xiao, Yingtai
Zhang, Linjun
Yan, Qiang
Cryptography and Security
Computation and Language
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Text data has become extremely valuable on large language models (LLMs) and even lead to general artificial intelligence (AGI). A lot of high-quality text in the real world is private and cannot be freely used due to privacy concerns. Therefore, differentially private (DP) synthetic text generation has been proposed, aiming to produce high-utility synthetic data while protecting sensitive information. However, existing DP synthetic text generation imposes uniform guarantees that often overprotect non-sensitive content, resulting in substantial utility loss and computational overhead. Therefore, we propose Secret-Protected Evolution (SecPE), a novel framework that extends private evolution with secret-aware protection. Theoretically, we show that SecPE satisfies $(\mathrm{p}, \mathrm{r})$-secret protection, constituting a relaxation of Gaussian DP that enables tighter utility-privacy trade-offs, while also substantially reducing computational complexity relative to baseline methods. Empirically, across the OpenReview, PubMed, and Yelp benchmarks, SecPE consistently achieves lower Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) and higher downstream task accuracy than GDP-based Aug-PE baselines, while requiring less noise to attain the same level of protection. Our results highlight that secret-aware guarantees can unlock more practical and effective privacy-preserving synthetic text generation.
title Secret-Protected Evolution for Differentially Private Synthetic Text Generation
topic Cryptography and Security
Computation and Language
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.10990