Differentially Private Federated Learning: A Systematic Review

In recent years, privacy and security concerns in machine learning have promoted trusted federated learning to the forefront of research. Differential privacy has emerged as the de facto standard for privacy protection in federated learning due to its rigorous mathematical foundation and provable guarantee. Despite extensive research on algorithms that incorporate differential privacy within federated learning, there remains an evident deficiency in systematic reviews that categorize and synthesize these studies. Our work presents a systematic overview of the differentially private federated learning. Existing taxonomies have not adequately considered objects and level of privacy protection provided by various differential privacy models in federated learning. To rectify this gap, we propose a new taxonomy of differentially private federated learning based on definition and guarantee of various differential privacy models and federated scenarios. Our classification allows for a clear delineation of the protected objects across various differential privacy models and their respective neighborhood levels within federated learning environments. Furthermore, we explore the applications of differential privacy in federated learning scenarios. Our work provide valuable insights into privacy-preserving federated learning and suggest practical directions for future research.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
ACM Computing Surveys
Published
2026-03-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3801079
Primary Topic
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Differentially Private Federated Learning: A Systematic Review

Y. W. Fu, Xun Ran, Xinpeng Ling, Zhiyu Sun et al.
ACM Computing Surveys
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
article

Differentially Private Federated Learning: A Systematic Review

Y. W. Fu, Xun Ran, Xinpeng Ling, Zhiyu Sun, Zhili Chen, Hui Wang, Yang Cao, Leixia Wang, Yuan Hong
article en

Abstract

In recent years, privacy and security concerns in machine learning have promoted trusted federated learning to the forefront of research. Differential privacy has emerged as the de facto standard for privacy protection in federated learning due to its rigorous mathematical foundation and provable guarantee. Despite extensive research on algorithms that incorporate differential privacy within federated learning, there remains an evident deficiency in systematic reviews that categorize and synthesize these studies. Our work presents a systematic overview of the differentially private federated learning. Existing taxonomies have not adequately considered objects and level of privacy protection provided by various differential privacy models in federated learning. To rectify this gap, we propose a new taxonomy of differentially private federated learning based on definition and guarantee of various differential privacy models and federated scenarios. Our classification allows for a clear delineation of the protected objects across various differential privacy models and their respective neighborhood levels within federated learning environments. Furthermore, we explore the applications of differential privacy in federated learning scenarios. Our work provide valuable insights into privacy-preserving federated learning and suggest practical directions for future research.

ACM Computing Surveys
Stevens Institute of Technology (US), Tongji University (CN), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Shanghai Institute for Science of Science (CN), Institute of Science Tokyo (JP), East China Normal University (CN), Universidad del Noreste (MX)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Openalex Percentile: Top 23%
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.