FLEDGE has been renamed to Protected Audience API. To learn more about the name change, see the blog post
k-anonymity is a privacy concept
that provides some protection against users being individually reidentified
within a data set. The concept itself is simple: for an object to meet a
k-anonymity threshold at least
A data set in this context is quite general. It might be a set of user
information published from a database or, in the case of the Privacy Sandbox,
it might be the set of users that are going to reveal some information to an
untrusted party. k-anonymity provides an ability to hide among the crowd,
where the crowd consists of
The FLEDGE proposal calls for k-anonymity thresholds on several
features. The first threshold is before interest groups are updated.
A browser should not request an interest group update from an untrusted
server unless there are at least dailyUpdateUrl.
k-anonymity is also applied to the renderUrl for ad creatives. One of the
goals of FLEDGE is to offer microtargeting protection; that is,
a user won't be shown an ad unless some minimum number, renderUrl prior to showing the ad to the user. In addition
to microtargeting protection of FLEDGE auctions, k-anonymity might in the
future also prevent user-identifying information from the embedding site from
being passed to an ad's fenced frame via parameters like size. Adding size
to the k-anonymity check of the renderUrl is under discussion in this
issue.
Beyond FLEDGE there are also plans to use k-anonymity thresholds in shared
storage. The shared storage
selectURL API may require that the returned URL meets a k-anonymity
threshold. Other browser features, like start_url parameters for
progressive web apps, might
benefit from applying k-anonymity thresholds as well.
Each of these use cases is aggregating counts of users towards
This counting towards k-anonymity is a feature of the browser itself. Unlike most browser features it needs to work on data generated across all browsers, which means it needs to be implemented on a server. The user is the person that benefits from k-anonymity, and the browser is the software that can choose to implement and enforce it. For Chrome we're implementing k-anonymity with a server, and as the provider of Chrome we're planning to operate the k-anonymity server in a similar model to how other server-based Chrome features operate: as a service offered by Google Chrome. Other Google Chrome services already in production include Safe Browsing and Chrome Sync. Unlike other FLEDGE services, which are operated by adtech companies, the k-anonymity service will not initially run inside of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with open, sourced code. See the other privacy enhancements we're exploring.
In this explainer we'll discuss details of the system design, how we're thinking about privacy, and the impact of our privacy decisions on advertisers.
Given the variety of use cases for k-anonymity thresholds, we intend to
implement a k-anonymity server that's quite general. Let's define an object
as the browser-stored state (e.g. an interest group) that we wish to have a
k-anonymity threshold for. We'll design the server to operate on integers
s = Hash(object); that is, every object will be hashed consistently
across browsers. On the server each hash will map to a single set,
where that set contains all the browsers that have told the server they have
the object as local browser-state. To support different use cases, with
possibly different server-side behavior, we'll define a type for each set.
The diagram below shows the write path, which we call Join, from a
browser to the server. The browser has an identifier or token, b, that is
used by the server for counting purposes. The browser hashes the object,
computing a set hash s. It sends these parameters, along with the type
of the set (e.g. "interest group"), t, to the server: Join(b, t, s).
The server will store this membership and apply a type-defined TTL that's
configured on the server. When the TTL expires, the server will stop
considering the browser b as part of (t,s) unless the browser sends
another Join request that resets the TTL for its membership.
The server also needs a read endpoint to expose back to the browser whether
a particular set is above the k-anonymity threshold. We call this endpoint
Query, and it takes a type t and the set s to check: Query(t, s).
It returns a boolean that is true if the set has met the k-anonymity threshold.
The list of sets above the threshold, each represented as (t, s) and used to
serve Query requests, is updated periodically with recent Join requests.
A given typed set
The browser will periodically call Query for its local objects and update
one bit per-object, is_kanon, with the result. This bit can be used by the
browser to enforce thresholds. For example, the browser could only request
network updates for interest groups where is_kanon == true or only render
an ad if the stored renderUrl has the bit set.
This simple design implements the business functionality of the server, but there are many other things we want to do to ensure the server protects the privacy of Chrome users.
We recognize the sensitivity of the information being sent to this server: the set hashes might represent browsing behavior, whether an interest group or otherwise. These are highly sensitive, and we don't want the server, or someone interacting with the server, to be able to link set hashes back to individual users.
In designing this server we're taking an iterative, privacy-focused approach. Our initial design contains robust privacy protections that are outlined in more detail below. Over time we plan to further strengthen privacy protections as research areas advance and new technologies and tools become available.
For requests to the k-anonymity server that are intended to be anonymous, such
as Join and Query requests described above, we plan to use an Oblivious
HTTP relay so Google
is oblivious to the IP addresses of end users. The payload for Join and Query
requests contain set hashes, which we consider sensitive browsing behavior,
so we'd like Google to know as little as possible about user requests.
Oblivious HTTP is well suited to this use case, where we have small, anonymous,
stateless, requests and we don't need the server that knows the browsing data,
i.e. the set hashes, privy to identifying information, including IP address,
of the user making the request. To implement Oblivious HTTP we're engaging
a third-party company to operate a relay resource on our behalf. Chrome
browsers, when making Join or Query requests, send to this relay, in the
body of an HTTP POST message, an encrypted payload for the k-anonymity server.
The payload is a Binary HTTP
message that has been encrypted using Hybrid Public Key
Encryption. Chrome will encrypt
the message using keys fetched directly from the k-anonymity server (on the
Google domain, not through the relay). The relay will forward the request
to a gateway that will run on Google servers near the k-anonymity server.
The relay is therefore oblivious to the content of the request but privy
to the requestor's IP address and the k-anonymity server (and gateway)
are oblivious to the requestor but privy to the request content.
This design lets us separate between two entities user identifying data that we can't remove by other means (such as the IP address) and the content of the user's request. No single entity sees both, and we expect a contractual relationship that ensures these entities don't collude to share request data.
We evaluated several other proxying designs that could avoid Google becoming
privy to user IP addresses. Among the other options we considered, Oblivious
HTTP stood out as offering a solution with the most coverage for Chrome users
in restrictive network environments, such as those with existing forward
proxies required to access the internet. As a normal, small, POST request
to the relay, Oblivious HTTP traffic is expected to work in more restricted
environments than, say, HTTP CONNECT or MASQUE proxy requests.
Next, we're taking a conservative approach to the browser identifier, b,
that is sent with Join requests. Even the operator of the k-anonymity server
shouldn't be able to identify unique users calling Join. If the operator
cheats, and examines the database stored by Join, we're protecting users
by only sending to Join a value b with entropy limited to
With Oblivious HTTP, we have no way of distinguishing users that share a b
when they call Join(b, t, s). When we count the cardinality of a set on
the server, each distinct b will be counted only once, even if multiple
users join the same set with identical values of b. This means that our
cardinality calculation may undercount and that we can only count up to a
limit of Join will be part of the
Chromium open source codebase, and can enforce on the user's device that
b is not longer than
Abusive or malicious writes to Join can undermine the k-anonymity thresholds,
misleading browsers into thinking they are members of a k-anonymous interest
group when, in fact, the other members of the group are not real. It is
important that we protect Join against malicious write traffic, and,
to maintain privacy, that we do this in an anonymous way.
To protect this endpoint we will use Private State
Tokens. Every write to Join will
require a one-time-use Private State Token be attached to the request, and tokens
will be bound to a specific low-entropy identifier, b. Each browser will
be issued tokens with its assigned b, and it can spend those tokens as it
wishes to make Join calls to the server.
We will operate a Private State Token issuer specific to this server and these
tokens; we'll call this issuer Sign. In our current proposal,
Sign will require, at least initially for desktop Chrome, that the user
be signed-in to Chrome with a Google Account. Requiring sign-in lets us
rate limit the number of tokens issued to a given user, assign each user a
stable value for b, and prevent naive abuse of Join by anonymous users.
Even though the user is signed-in, and Google Account credentials are
used to issue Private State Tokens, the Private State Tokens received by Join cannot be
linked
back to the Google Account they were issued to. The Private State Token issuer can
learn which users join a large number of interest groups. To guard against
this, we're exploring options that include having the client request tokens
at a constant rate and discard unused tokens.
Query is a read-only API, so it doesn't have the same abuse concerns as
Join. We won't require Private State Tokens, or a Google Account, for a browser
to call Query.
To protect the user data exposed through the Query server we use the
AboveThresholdWithPeriodicRestartAlgorithm
algorithm to generate the server’s public output. The algorithm is differentially
private in the continual release setting. This means that we bound the ability of an
observer with access to the periodically updated k-anonymity status of a set — that is,
the stream of Query server outputs over time — to determine whether a user joined that set
in a given period.
A user joining a set may flip its k-anonymity status from “not k-anonymous” to “k-anonymous”. Intuitively, observing the k-anonymity status of a set accurately right before and right after the join event may infer exactly that a user has joined a set. To reduce information leakage risks, the algorithm applies noise to the correct evaluation of the k-anonymity query and limits the update frequency to period intervals. The noise is carefully calibrated so that the total leaked information from the continual observations of Query responses is bounded. The algorithm also guarantees limits to the probability of false negative and false positive responses.
The algorithm for a single set is built upon the AboveThreshold (Theorem 3.23) algorithm which is provably differentially private for a single monotone run, ending at the first positive (“set is k-anonymous”) output. The noise used in the algorithm is truncated Laplace noise. To provide accurate k-anonymity evaluation in the streaming setting, FLEDGE uses the novel algorithm composed of serially executed AboveThreshold instances. An AboveThreshold algorithm instance runs for a limited time period. If the algorithm returns a positive k-anonymity status for a set during this period, the response remains positive until the end of the AboveThreshold instance run. At the end of the period, the instance is refreshed. The restart ensures that the k-anonymity query for each set is noisily evaluated with a guaranteed minimum frequency, and past set joins do not impact the set k-anonymity status for an unlimited period of time. The complete details on the novel algorithm are available in Differentially Private Algorithms for 𝑘-Anonymity Server. This algorithm is related to our research on the more general problem of differentially private estimation of counting queries in continual release. For further details, see our research paper.
To build on the privacy protections we are implementing today, there are a few different areas we're researching that could offer even better privacy to Chrome users. None of these approaches are ready for production today, but we commit to continue investing in research, prototyping, and testing in these areas.
The Query endpoint to this server receives sensitive information in
the form of set hashes that the browser wants to check the k-anonymous
property of. If Query requests are batched, with multiple set
hashes in a single request, then that request contains cross-site data
known to be from a single browser. Private information retrieval
(PIR) is a
technique that could allow the server to process Query requests, either
batched or unbatched, without the server knowing which set hashes are being
queried. We're exploring both single-party PIR, which currently has a lot
of network and computational overhead, and multi-party PIR, which has less
overhead but the additional complexity of operating two non-colluding servers
with consistent copies of the dataset.
We're working on researching and testing a privacy improvement to
low-entropy browser identifiers. The b, is constant for a given browser, which allows some inferences
to be made by the Join server, in spite of collisions between users.
To improve the privacy of this scheme and increase the accuracy of our
cardinality calculations, while maintaining our ability to prevent abusive
traffic, we're developing a new token scheme that we're calling Anonymous
Counting Tokens.
Anonymous Counting Tokens will allow a token issuer (the Sign server)
to issue tokens to a client that are associated with a value that the
client provides. The issuer will be able to ensure that the client
can obtain only a single token for a given value without knowing
the value the client is requesting a token for, i.e. the tokens are
blind.
The Sign server will use Anonymous Counting Tokens to issue tokens signed
for a single set hash, in contrast to the low-entropy identifier design
where tokens are signed for a value derived from a first party identity the
Sign server is given by the client. Each user will be able to request
only a single token for each set hash and the Join server will verify, in
what will become a Join(t, s) call, that the token was issued for the set
hash s that the client is attempting to join. It may be surprising that
this behavior is even possible without the token issuer learning anything
about the set hashes joined by a particular user. See our
research paper for the new cryptographic
protocol that makes this possible.
To support validity periods for the Anonymous Counting Tokens where each client can get one token per value per period, we will have a registration mechanism which will enable clients to refresh their parameters per TTL period and obtain a fresh token for each period.
Similar to low-entropy identifiers, Sign will require with Anonymous Counting
Tokens that the server has a first party identity with the user (a Google
Account or other trusted identity provider) for the server to issue tokens.
We are exploring approaches to transition components of this server to run in trusted execution environments (TEEs) with open source code. TEEs implemented by chip manufacturers and cloud providers could allow the browser to verify the server code executing matches the open source project and offer encryption of the server's RAM while in-use, protecting some of the server's data from insider access. Combined with thoughtful key management, TEEs could offer an opportunity to increase the privacy of other server functions like counting cardinalities and persisting state.
Our initial reliance on Google Accounts to issue Private State Tokens that authenticate writes is necessary partly because we don't have other methods of authenticating a Chrome browser to a server. Some platforms, like Android with SafetyNet attestations, can assure the server that a request originates from a legitimate device and client application. Desktop Chrome, however, runs on many different platforms with varying degrees of platform-level security. In the future we hope to develop methods of attesting to our server that requests are from a legitimate instance of desktop Chrome without necessarily requiring the user to be signed-in to their Google Account.
The choices we are making here to protect user privacy impact the behavior of the server, and the behavior of FLEDGE within Chrome.
By using low-entropy identifiers that intentionally collide among browsers
we by design undercount the cardinality of a given set hash. This has the
potential to require more than k browsers to join a set before it is marked
k-anonymous. Even if b, then the set won't be marked k-anonymous. We will
mitigate this by choosing a uniform distribution of b identifiers across
browsers. Over time we hope to migrate from low-entropy identifiers to the
anonymous token scheme, which does not undercount cardinality in the same way.
To ensure differential privacy of the output data from this
server, i.e. the set of k-anonymous set hashes, we must
limit how frequently we update the data. We must also add
noise to the
membership of a given set hash in the output. These restrictions mean that an
interest group will not be marked k-anonymous immediately after the
To prevent abuse of the Join API, we are only allowing writes from users
that are signed-in to Chrome. Developers can still use FLEDGE for users
that aren't signed-in to Google within the Chrome browser, including making
calls to Query to check k-anonymity thresholds. However, we recognize that
the addition of those users to interest groups won't contribute to counts that
make a set hash k-anonymous. We recognize that this may bias the system against
interest groups that might be more popular with signed-out users. Over time
we expect to reduce, or otherwise eliminate, this potential bias by adding
support for device attestation or other approaches to device-level trust.
The Private State Token issuer, Sign, will enforce limits on token issuance to
each Google Account. Tokens are one-time-use, so these limits will restrict
the number of Join calls a browser can make in a given period of time.
This doesn't necessarily limit the number of interest groups the browser can
join locally, only the number it will be considered a part of when computing
k-anonymity on the server. This limit will be per-user, and the browser can
make decisions about which interest groups to spend its tokens on and make
Join calls for.