In order to prevent leaking input information from intermediate-layer
features, this paper proposes a method to revise the traditional neural network
into the rotation-equivariant neural network (RENN). Compared to the
traditional neural network, the RENN uses d-ary vectors/tensors as features, in
which each element is a d-ary number. These d-ary features can be rotated
(analogous to the rotation of a d-dimensional vector) with a random angle as
the encryption process. Input information is hidden in this target phase of
d-ary features for attribute obfuscation. Even if attackers have obtained
network parameters and intermediate-layer features, they cannot extract input
information without knowing the target phase. Hence, the input privacy can be
effectively protected by the RENN. Besides, the output accuracy of RENNs only
degrades mildly compared to traditional neural networks, and the computational
cost is significantly less than the homomorphic encryption.