Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Federated machine learning in data-protection-compliant research

To fully leverage big data, they need to be shared across institutions in a manner compliant with privacy considerations and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Federated machine learning is a promising option.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Schematic representation of federated learning combined with privacy-enhancing techniques (PETs).

References

  1. Crowson, M. G. et al. PloS Digit. Health 1, e0000033 (2022).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Rieke, N. et al. NPJ Digit. Med. 3, 19 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Sadilek, A. et al. NPJ Digit. Med. 4, 132 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Zolotareva, O. et al. Genome Biol. 22, 338 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Aouedi, O., Sacco, A., Piamrat, K. & Marchetto, G. IEEE J. Biomed. Health Inform. https://doi.org/10.1109/JBHI.2022.3185673 (2022).

  6. Ficek, J., Wang, W., Chen, H., Dagne, G. & Daley, E. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 28, 2269–2276 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Dankar, F. K., Madathil, N., Dankar, S. K. & Boughorbel, S. JMIR Med. Inform. 7, e12702 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Huang, X. World Wide Web J Biol. 23, 2529–2545 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  9. European Parliament/European Council. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02016R0679-20160504&from=EN (2016).

  10. Winter, C., Battis, V. & Halvani, O. ZD Zeitschrift für Datenschutz 11, 489–493 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Kaulartz, M. & Braegelmann, T. Rechtshandbuch Artificial Intelligence und Machine Learning (C.H. Beck, 2020).

  12. Ma, R. et al. Bioinformatics 36, 2872–2880 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Liu, T., Di, B., Wang, B. & Song, L. IEEE J. Sel. Top Signal. Process. 16, 546–558 (2022).

  14. Zhang, X., Kang, Y., Chen, K., Fan, L. & Yang, Q. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.00230 (2022).

  15. Bietti, A., Wei, C. Y., Dudik, M., Langford, J. & Wu, S. in Proc. Machine Learning Research Vol. 162 (eds Chaudhuri, K. et al.) 1945–1962 (MLR Press, 2022).

  16. Mugunthan, V., Byrd, D., Polychroniadou, A. & Balch, T. H. J.P.Morgan https://www.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm/cib/complex/content/technology/ai-research-publications/pdf-9.pdf (2019).

  17. Antunes, R. S., André da Costa, C., Küderle, A., Yari, I. A. & Eskofier, B. ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol. 13, 1–23 (2022).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Wibawa, F., Catak, F. O., Sarp, S., Kuzlu, M. & Cali, U. in Proc. 2022 European Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Conference, 85–90 (Association for Computing Machinery, 2022).

  19. Information Commissioner’s Office. ICO https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/accountability-and-governance/documentation/(2022).

  20. Zerka, F. et al. JCO Clin. Cancer Inform. 4, 184–200 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  21. ePrivacy. https://www.eprivacy.eu/home/ (accessed 6 July 2022).

  22. International Standard Organization. ISO https://www.iso.org/isoiec-27001-information-security.html (2022).

  23. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42 Artificial intelligence. ISO https://www.iso.org/standard/74438.html(2022).

  24. Sheller, M. J. et al. Online supplement (Supplementary Information 1) to Sci. Rep. 10, 12598 (2020); https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-020-69250-1/MediaObjects/41598_2020_69250_MOESM1_ESM.docx

  25. Sheller, M. J. et al. Sci. Rep. 10, 12598 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Truong, N., Sun, K., Wang, S., Guitton, F. & Guo, Y. Comput. Security 110, 102402 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Pfitzner, B., Steckhan, N. & Arnrich, B. ACM Trans. Internet Technol. 21, 1–31 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Lepri, B., Oliver, N. & Pentland, A. iScience 24, 102249 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Our work was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; grants 16DTM100A and 16DTM100C). We also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 826078. This publication reflects only the authors’ views, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alissa Brauneck.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Machine Intelligence thanks Stuart McLennan and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Brauneck, A., Schmalhorst, L., Kazemi Majdabadi, M.M. et al. Federated machine learning in data-protection-compliant research. Nat Mach Intell 5, 2–4 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-022-00601-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-022-00601-5

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing