We extend recent work in Quantitative Information Flow (QIF) to provide tools for the analysis of programs that aim to implement differentially private mechanisms. We demonstrate how differential privacy can be expressed using loss functions, and how to use this idea in conjunction with a QIF-enabled program semantics to verify differentially private guarantees. Finally we describe how to use this approach experimentally using Kuifje, a recently developed tool for analysing information-flow properties of programs.

Annabelle McIver is a professor of Computer Science at Macquarie University in Sydney. Annabelle trained as a mathematician at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Her research uses mathematics to prove quantitative properties of programs, and more recently to provide foundations for quantitative information flow for analysing security properties. She is co-author of the book “Abstraction, Refinement and Proof for Probabilistic Systems”, and of the forthcoming title "The Science of Quantitative Information Flow”.