mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Your Unlearning Gives You Away: Identifying Erased Concepts in Diffusion Models

arXiv 2610.05601 ↗First posted 4 Oct 2026cs.LG cs.AIcited by 0

On the map: Diffusion models → Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

Existing attacks on unlearned diffusion models assume that the erased concepts are known in advance and focus on recovering them. In practice, however, model providers may not disclose which concepts have been removed, and even with access to the original base model, an adversary may still lack a clear target to attack. In this paper, we aim to answer the following critical but overlooked questions: which concepts have been erased from the model, and how many have been erased in total? To this end, we present Tracer, a framework that rapidly and accurately identifies erased concepts and estimates their number. Tracer efficiently identifies erased concepts without generating and classifying images. By combining lightweight spectral analysis of weight footprints, it enables efficient search over large candidate vocabularies. To distinguish multiple erased concepts, we introduce a footprint coverage objective that guides sequential discovery. Tracer estimates the number of erased concepts by detecting a sharp decline in candidate confidence as the selected concepts account for the erasure footprint, without requiring labeled examples for calibration. The framework requires only lightweight linear algebra and limited forward probes, with no prior knowledge of the unlearning algorithm. Experiments across text-to-image and text-to-video backbones and diverse unlearning methods demonstrate that Tracer identifies erased concepts and estimates their number in seconds, achieving 150 to 137,000 times and 133 to 20,000 times speedups over MIA and brute-force search on image and video models, respectively, with substantially higher identification accuracy.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. First posted on arXiv 4 Oct 2026.

Builds on

No reference list yet.

Built on by

Not cited yet.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Roots Beneath the Cut: Uncovering the Risk of Concept Revival in Pruning-Based Unlearning for Diffusion Models
  2. 2024Unlearning or Concealment? A Critical Analysis and Evaluation Metrics for Unlearning in Diffusion Models
  3. 2025When Are Concepts Erased From Diffusion Models?
  4. 2026Forget Many, Forget Right: Scalable and Precise Concept Unlearning in Diffusion Models
  5. 2026CoreUnlearn: Rethinking Concept Unlearning through Disentangled Component-Level Erasure in Text-guided Diffusion Models
  6. 2026No Concept Escapes the Audit: Auditing-Aware Unlearning for Verifiable Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models
  7. 2025Fantastic Targets for Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models and Where To Find Them
  8. 2026You Can't Have It Both Ways: Concept Entanglement Limits Diffusion Model Unlearning