Clustering is a fundamental data processing task used for grouping records based on one or more features.
In the vertically partitioned setting, computing distances between records requires access to all distributed features, which may be privacy-sensitive and cannot be directly shared.
A novel solution based on homomorphic encryption and differential privacy (DP) is proposed, reducing communication complexity and ensuring privacy with minimal impact on utility.
The proposed solution allows for practical deployments even in WAN settings, maintaining accuracy comparable to plaintext k-means algorithms.