# Don't Memorize; Mimic The Past: Federated Class Incremental Learning Without Episodic Memory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.00497 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.00497/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 30)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Advances and Open Problems in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04977/) (2019)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning: Challenges, Methods, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07873/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning: Strategies for Improving Communication Efficiency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.05492/) (2016)
- [Continual Learning with Deep Generative Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08690/) (2017)
- [Experience Replay for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11682/) (2018)
- [Adaptive Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.00295/) (2020)
- [Inverting Gradients -- How easy is it to break privacy in federated learning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14053/) (2020)
- [Three scenarios for continual learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07734/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning with Differential Privacy: Algorithms and Performance Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.00222/) (2019)
- [Local Model Poisoning Attacks to Byzantine-Robust Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11815/) (2019)
- [Dreaming to Distill: Data-free Knowledge Transfer via DeepInversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.08795/) (2019)
- [Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10056/) (2021)
- [Data-Free Learning of Student Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01186/) (2019)
- [Practical Secure Aggregation for Federated Learning on User-Held Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.04482/) (2016)
- [Threats to Federated Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.02133/) (2020)
- [Federated Continual Learning with Weighted Inter-client Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03196/) (2020)
- [Always Be Dreaming: A New Approach for Data-Free Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09701/) (2021)
- [Federated Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11473/) (2022)
- [Overcoming Forgetting in Federated Learning on Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.07796/) (2019)
- [Better Generative Replay for Continual Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13001/) (2023)
- [The Knowledge Within: Methods for Data-Free Model Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01274/) (2019)
- [ZeroFL: Efficient On-Device Training for Federated Learning with Local Sparsity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.02507/) (2022)
- [A distillation-based approach integrating continual learning and federated learning for pervasive services](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04197/) (2021)
- [FedSpeech: Federated Text-to-Speech with Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07216/) (2021)
- [Federated Reconnaissance: Efficient, Distributed, Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00150/) (2021)
- [Continual Distributed Learning for Crisis Management](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.12876/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Federated Orthogonal Training: Mitigating Global Catastrophic Forgetting in Continual Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.01289/) (2023)
- [Federated Class-Incremental Learning: A Hybrid Approach Using Latent Exemplars and Data-Free Techniques to Address Local and Global Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15356/) (2025)
- [Server-Proximal Aggregation for Federated Domain-Incremental Learning under Partial Participation: Task-Uniform Convergence and Backward Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22274/) (2026)
- [From Selection to Scheduling: Federated Geometry-Aware Correction Makes Exemplar Replay Work Better under Continual Dynamic Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.08617/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning models are prone to forgetting information learned in the past when trained on new data. This problem becomes even more pronounced in the context of federated learning (FL), where data is decentralized and subject to independent changes for each user. Continual Learning (CL) studies this so-called textitcatastrophic forgetting phenomenon primarily in centralized settings, where the learner has direct access to the complete training dataset. However, applying CL techniques to FL is not straightforward due to privacy concerns and resource limitations. This paper presents a framework for federated class incremental learning that utilizes a generative model to synthesize samples from past distributions instead of storing part of past data. Then, clients can leverage the generative model to mitigate catastrophic forgetting locally. The generative model is trained on the server using data-free methods at the end of each task without requesting data from clients. Therefore, it reduces the risk of data leakage as opposed to training it on the client's private data. We demonstrate significant improvements for the CIFAR-100 dataset compared to existing baselines.