Title: Approximate Probabilistic Coupling and Differential Privacy

Abstract: Approximate lifting is a formal verification concept for proving

differential privacy. Recently, we have explored an interesting connection:

approximate liftings are an approximate version of probabilistic coupling. As a

consequence, we can give new, “coupling” proofs of differential privacy,

simplifying and generalizing existing proofs.  In this talk we will present

approximate couplings and describe how to they can be used to prove differential

privacy for the Sparse Vector mechanism, an algorithm whose existing privacy

proof is notoriously subtle.

Joint with Gilles Barthe, Marco Gaboradi, Benjamin Gregoire, and Pierre-Yves Strub.