Encrypt Your Dataset and Train Your Model with It Directly

Encrypt Your Dataset and Train Your Model with It Directly

Introduction

When we deal with dataset for creating AI models, we need to consider sensitive information managed and stored online in the cloud or on connected devices. Unsecured datasets can be vulnerable to unauthorized access, theft, and misuse, particularly when processed for machine learning workloads. Certain fields, such as industrial or medical sectors, face exceptionally high risks when their data is exposed to these potential threats. For example, if a dataset used to train a detection model for identifying factory process errors is leaked, it can expose sensitive factory process technology. This highlights the importance of safeguarding datasets at every stage, from data storage to model training.

Dataset Management Framework (Datumaro) offers a dataset encryption feature for AI model training. With Datumaro, you can encrypt datasets of any computer vision data format into the DatumaroBinary format. This encrypted dataset can remain encrypted as far as it is needed for decryption. By combining the encrypted dataset with OpenVINO training extensions™, you can use it directly for model training without decryption. Whenever needed, you can use Datumaro once again to decrypt the dataset and convert it back to any major computer vision data format, such as VOC, COCO, or YOLO. Please refer to another posting data_convert for data convert.

Encrypt Your Dataset Using Datumaro

Datumaro provides two ways to encrypt a dataset: CLI and Python API. First, you need to install Datumaro on your system. Please refer to the installation guide here for detailed instructions. Once you have completed the installation of Datumaro, let's first look at the CLI usage. You can encrypt a dataset using the datum convert CLI command as follows:

datum convert -i [input-dataset-path] -o [output-dataset-path] -f datumaro_binary -- --save-media --encryption

The necessary user inputs for this command are as follows:

  1. -i <input-dataset-path>: Enter the path to the dataset you want to encrypt in <input-dataset-path>.
  2. -o <output-dataset-path>: Enter the path where the encrypted dataset will be produced in <output-dataset-path>.

NOTE:: (Optional) You can additionally specify the data format of your input dataset by entering the -if <input-dataset-format> argument. In most cases, Datumaro can automatically infer the data format of the input dataset, but it might fail. In such cases, you can use the datum detect --show-rejections <input-dataset-path> command to identify the cause of the failure while inferring the data format.

NOTE:: The --save-media argument is a flag that allows you to convert your media files (e.g., images) as well. If this argument is not provided, the encrypted media will not be included in the output directory and only the encrypted annotations are included in the output directory.

Next, let's take a look at how to encrypt a dataset using the Python API. Please examine the following code snippet:

from datumaro import Dataset 

dataset = Dataset.import_from(path="[input-dataset-path]")
dataset.export(save_dir="[output-dataset-path]", 
    format="datumaro_binary", 
    encryption=True, 
    save_media=True,)

You import the dataset by specifying the path of the input dataset in the import_from function as path="<input-dataset-path>". Then, to export the dataset, you specify the path of the output dataset in the save_dir="<output-dataset-path>" of the export function. Similarly, you also need to provide the encryption=True and format="datumaro_binary" keyword arguments as in the CLI example. A more detailed end-to-end example for this can be found in a Jupyter notebook. Please refer to this link for more information.

So far, all the examples have used the datumaro_binary (DatumaroBinary) format for the exported dataset. Currently, the dataset encryption feature is only supported for the datumaro_binary format. DatumaroBinary is a Datumaro's own data format that stores annotation data in binary representation. It is much faster and storage efficient compared to string-based datasets such as COCO based on JSON. For more detailed information about DatumaroBinary, please refer to this link.

How Datumaro Encrypts Your Dataset?

Datumaro uses the Fernet symmetric encryption recipe provided by the cryptography library to encrypt the dataset. Fernet is built on top of a number of standard cryptographic primitives such as AES or HMAC, and hence Fernet guarantees that a message encrypted cannot be manipulated or read without the key. Please refer to this link for detailed information.

When encrypting the dataset, Datumaro generates a secret key through Fernet and saves it as a txt file at the following path: <output-dataset-path>/secret_key.txt. The secret key generated at this path is a 50-characters string, which consists of a randomly generated 32-bytes string encoded in base64, with the prefix datum- added.

cat [output-dataset-path]/secret_key.txt

# A secret key will be randomly generated.
datum-IedFogo3TiyVKF2V1-jT2aO-_r3lWHNQoCWvGEyyjKo=

If you have checked the secret key in this file, you must ensure that it is not in the same location with the dataset. If this secret key is uncovered, an attacker would be able to access the contents of the encrypted dataset. Additionally, this secret key is required when training models using OpenVINO training extensions™ with the encrypted dataset or when decrypting it later. Therefore, you should be careful not to lose this secret key.

The following table briefly shows how the data is encrypted. The binary representation of the data is encrypted, so that the following image cannot be seen by the image viewer.

Train Your Model with the Encrypted Dataset Using OpenVINO Training Extensions™

OpenVINO training extensions™ is a tool that allows convenient training of computer vision models and accelerated inference on Intel® devices by exporting trained models to OpenVINO Intermediate Representation (IR) through a CLI. Within the OpenVINO ecosystem, Datumaro is integrated with OpenVINO training extensions™ as a dataset interface. Therefore, the encrypted dataset can be directly used for model training through OpenVINO training extensions™. For detailed installation instructions of OpenVINO training extensions™, please refer to the following link.

Next, let's explore how to use the encrypted dataset directly for model training through the CLI command.

otx train [template] --train-data-roots [encrypted-dataset-path] --val-data-roots [encrypted-dataset-path] --encryption-key [secret-key]

The user inputs required for this command are as follows:

  1. --train-data-roots <encrypted-dataset-path> and --val-data-roots <encrypted-dataset-path>: Specify the path to the encrypted dataset by replacing <encrypted-dataset-path>. Since the DatumaroBinary format uses the same root directory for both the training and validation subsets, both arguments should have the same value.
  2. --encryption-key <secret-key>: Provide the secret key corresponding to the encrypted dataset in <secret-key>. This is the 50-character string with the datum- prefix described in the previous section.

NOTE:: <template> is the name of the model template provided by OpenVINO training extensions™. A model template is a recipe for a deep learning model for a specific computer vision task. To explore all the model templates supported by OpenVINO training extensions™, you can use the otx find CLI command or refer to this link.

Decrypt the Encrypted Dataset Using Datumaro

If you want to utilize the encrypted dataset in another AI workload, you need to decrypt the encrypted data. This process reverses the dataset encryption using Datumaro, and encryption-decryption preserves all the information without loss. Similar to the previous section, decryption can be done using the CLI or Python API. Let's first look at decryption using the CLI.

datum convert -i [encrypted-dataset-path] -o [output-dataset-path] -f [output-data-format] --encryption-key [secret-key] --save-media

You can use the same datum convert command as before. However, specify the path to the encrypted dataset as the input dataset path (-i <encrypted-dataset-path>), and provide the secret key, which is a 50-character string with the datum- prefix described in the previous section, as the <secret-key> argument for --encryption-key <secret-key>. Additionally, you can choose any data format supported by Datumaro as the output data format. To learn more about the data formats supported by Datumaro, refer to this link.

Next, let's see how decryption can be done using Python API.

from datumaro import Dataset

dataset = Dataset.import_from(
    path="[encrypted-dataset-path]",
    encryption_key=""
)
dataset.export(
    save_dir="[output-dataset-path]",
    format="[output-data-format]",
    save_media=True
)

Similar to the CLI method, provide the path to the encrypted dataset and the secret key as arguments to the import_from function. For the export function, specify the output dataset path and the output data format.

Conclusion

This post introduced dataset encryption feature provided by Datumaro. It demonstrated how to encrypt a dataset using Datumaro and train a model with the encrypted dataset using OpenVINO training extensions™. Whenever needed you can decrypt it with Datumaro for other AI projects and training frameworks. You can refer to the end-to-end Jupyter notebook example provided on this blog post here for step-by-step guide. The features introduced in this post are available in Datumaro version 1.4.0 or higher and OpenVINO training extensions™ version 1.4.0 or higher.

Datumaro offers a range of useful features for managing datasets besides the dataset encryption feature. You can find examples of other Datumaro features, such as noisy label detection during training with OpenVINO training extensions™, in the Jupyter examples directory. For more information about Datumaro and its capabilities, you can visit the Datumaro documentation page. If you have any questions or requests about using Datumaro, feel free to open an issue here.