Single-Server Pliable Private Information Retrieval With Side Information

We study the problem of pliable private information retrieval with side information (PPIR-SI) for the single server case. In PPIR, the messages are partitioned into nonoverlapping classes and stored in a number of noncolluding databases. The user wishes to retrieve any one message from a desired class while revealing no information about the desired class identity to the databases. In PPIR-SI, the user has prior access to some side information in the form of messages from different classes and wishes to retrieve any one new message from a desired class, i.e., the message is not included in the side information set, while revealing no information about the desired class to the databases. We characterize the capacity of (linear) single-server PPIR-SI for the case where the user’s side information is unidentified, i.e., the user is oblivious of the identities of its side information messages and the database structure. We term this case PPIR-USI. Surprisingly, we show that having side information, in PPIR-USI, is disadvantageous, in terms of the download rate, compared to PPIR.