dp-group-stats 0.1.2

Differentially private publication pipeline for aggregate group statistics with k-anonymity gating and budget accounting

dp-group-stats

A lightweight Python library for publishing differentially private aggregate statistics over small groups, with k-anonymity gating and privacy budget accounting.

What this solves

When publishing aggregate statistics (means, sums) for small professional groups on a recurring schedule, you need:

1. Differential privacy — calibrated noise so individual contributions can't be reverse-engineered
2. K-anonymity gating — suppress groups that are too small to publish safely
3. Budget accounting — track cumulative privacy spend per user across groups and time
4. Graceful degradation — when budget runs low, statistics get noisier instead of disappearing

Existing DP libraries are either massive frameworks (OpenDP, TensorFlow Privacy) or bare mechanism implementations. dp-group-stats is the pipeline layer in between: configuration, noise, publication policy, and budget tracking in one focused package with zero dependencies.

Install

pip install dp-group-stats

Requirements: Python 3.10+ — no dependencies beyond the standard library.

Quick start

from datetime import date
from dp_group_stats import (
    DPGroupStatsConfig,
    InMemoryPrivacyLedger,
    PublicationStatus,
    compute_adaptive_epsilon,
    get_period_bounds,
    get_publication_status,
    laplace_noise,
    laplace_ci_half_width,
)

# 1. Configure the pipeline
config = DPGroupStatsConfig(
    period_type="weekly",
    annual_epsilon_cap=150.0,
)

# 2. Check publication eligibility
status = get_publication_status(
    was_active=False,
    consecutive_eligible=3,
    consecutive_ineligible=0,
    activation_weeks=config.release_policy.activation_weeks,
    deactivation_grace_weeks=config.release_policy.deactivation_grace_weeks,
)
assert status == PublicationStatus.published

# 3. Clip contributions and add noise
raw_actual_hours = [42.0, 55.0, 38.0, 61.0, 200.0, 44.0]
clipped = [config.bounds.clip_actual(h) for h in raw_actual_hours]
true_sum = sum(clipped)

noisy_sum = true_sum + laplace_noise(
    epsilon=config.epsilon_split.actual_sum,
    sensitivity=config.bounds.actual_sensitivity,
)
noisy_mean = noisy_sum / len(clipped)

# 4. Compute confidence intervals
ci_half, n_display = laplace_ci_half_width(
    epsilon=config.epsilon_split.actual_sum,
    sensitivity=config.bounds.actual_sensitivity,
    n_users=len(clipped),
)
print(f"Mean: {noisy_mean:.1f}h [±{ci_half:.1f}h 90% CI] (~{n_display} reporters)")

# 5. Track budget
ledger = InMemoryPrivacyLedger()
for user_id in ["u1", "u2", "u3", "u4", "u5", "u6"]:
    ledger.record(
        user_id=user_id,
        family="state_specialty",
        cell_key="DEU/BE/cardiology",
        period_start=date(2026, 3, 16),
        epsilon=config.epsilon_split.total,
    )

summary = ledger.budget_summary(annual_cap=config.annual_epsilon_cap)
print(f"Worst-case user: {summary['worst_case_spent']:.1f}ε of {summary['annual_cap']}ε cap")

Components

Configuration (dp_group_stats.config)

• ContributionBounds — clipping bounds that limit sensitivity (default: planned [0, 80h], actual [0, 120h])
• EpsilonSplit — how per-cell epsilon is divided across quantities (default: 0.2 planned, 0.8 actual)
• ReleasePolicyConfig — k-anonymity threshold, dominance rule, activation/deactivation streaks
• DPGroupStatsConfig — top-level config with budget validation at construction time

Mechanisms (dp_group_stats.mechanisms)

• laplace_noise() — Laplace mechanism with injectable RNG for deterministic testing
• laplace_ci_half_width() — confidence intervals with rounded group size to avoid leaking exact n

Policy (dp_group_stats.policy)

Publication state machine: suppressed → warming_up → published → cooling_down → suppressed

• Cells must pass k_min and dominance checks for N consecutive periods before publishing
• Grace period before suppression (noise continues during cooldown to prevent information leakage)

Accounting (dp_group_stats.accounting)

• PrivacyLedger (Protocol) — pluggable interface for budget tracking
• InMemoryPrivacyLedger — reference implementation for testing/simulation
• EpsilonLedger — lightweight cell-only tracker
• compute_adaptive_epsilon() — graceful degradation that scales epsilon down as the annual cap approaches

Bring your own storage backend by implementing the PrivacyLedger protocol (e.g., SQL-backed for production).

Periods (dp_group_stats.periods)

• get_period_bounds() — weekly/biweekly/monthly period boundaries
• period_before() / compute_period_index() — temporal navigation

Design decisions

This library makes specific choices documented in the design specs:

• Substitution neighboring relation: DP protects contribution values, not user presence. Counts are public; only sums are noised.
• Per-user budget accounting: the privacy guarantee lives with users, not cells. A user appearing in multiple release families accumulates epsilon across all of them.
• Time-based degradation: adaptive epsilon is computed from elapsed time and configured spending, not from actual per-user data (which would itself leak information).
• K-anonymity as policy, not proof: k_min and dominance rules are publication safeguards layered on top of DP, not substitutes for it.

Developed for

This library was extracted from Open Working Hours, a privacy-first platform for healthcare workers to track and report working hours. The design was validated through 200+ simulation scenarios covering parameter selection for workforce statistics.

License

MIT