# Accuracy-Privacy Trade-off in the Mitigation of Membership Inference Attack in Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19119 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19119/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Federated unlearning and poisoning, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 16 of its 23 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Jul 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM safety and security / [Federated unlearning and poisoning](https://mlsanity.com/safety/federated-unlearning-and-poisoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Simple and Scalable Predictive Uncertainty Estimation using Deep Ensembles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01474/) (2016)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Membership Inference Attacks against Machine Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.05820/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning with Matched Averaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06440/) (2020)
- [ML-Leaks: Model and Data Independent Membership Inference Attacks and Defenses on Machine Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01246/) (2018)
- [Label-Only Membership Inference Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14321/) (2020)
- [Client-Edge-Cloud Hierarchical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.06641/) (2019)
- [FedBE: Making Bayesian Model Ensemble Applicable to Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.01974/) (2020)
- [One-Shot Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.11175/) (2019)
- [Sampling Attacks: Amplification of Membership Inference Attacks by Repeated Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.00395/) (2020)
- [Accuracy-Privacy Trade-off in Deep Ensemble: A Membership Inference Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05381/) (2021)
- [MIA-BAD: An Approach for Enhancing Membership Inference Attack and its Mitigation with Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00051/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [RADEP: A Resilient Adaptive Defense Framework Against Model Extraction Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19364/) (2025)
- [Privacy Drift: Evolving Privacy Concerns in Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05183/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Over the last few years, federated learning (FL) has emerged as a prominent method in machine learning, emphasizing privacy preservation by allowing multiple clients to collaboratively build a model while keeping their training data private. Despite this focus on privacy, FL models are susceptible to various attacks, including membership inference attacks (MIAs), posing a serious threat to data confidentiality. In a recent study, Rezaei textitet al. revealed the existence of an accuracy-privacy trade-off in deep ensembles and proposed a few fusion strategies to overcome it. In this paper, we aim to explore the relationship between deep ensembles and FL. Specifically, we investigate whether confidence-based metrics derived from deep ensembles apply to FL and whether there is a trade-off between accuracy and privacy in FL with respect to MIA. Empirical investigations illustrate a lack of a non-monotonic correlation between the number of clients and the accuracy-privacy trade-off. By experimenting with different numbers of federated clients, datasets, and confidence-metric-based fusion strategies, we identify and analytically justify the clear existence of the accuracy-privacy trade-off.