BHE+ALBERT-Mixplus: A Distributed Symmetric Approximate Homomorphic Encryption Model for Secure Short-Text Sentiment Classification in Teaching Evaluations
Jingren Zhang, Siti Sarah Maidin, Deshinta Arrova Dewi · Symmetry · 2025
This study addresses the sentiment classification of short texts in teaching evaluations. To mitigate concerns regarding data security in cloud-based sentiment analysis and to overcome the limited feature extraction capacity of traditional deep-learning methods, we propose a distributed symmetric approximate homomorphic hybrid sentiment classification model, denoted BHE+ALBERT-Mixplus. To enable homomorphic encryption of non-polynomial functions within the ALBERT-Mixplus architecture—a mixing-and-enhancement variant of ALBERT—we introduce the BHE (BERT-based Homomorphic Encryption) algorithm. The BHE establishes a distributed symmetric approximation workflow, constructing a cloud–user symmetric encryption framework. Within this framework, simplified computations and mathematical approximations are applied to handle non-polynomial operations (e.g., GELU, Softmax, and LayerNorm) under the CKKS homomorphic-encryption scheme. Consequently, the ALBERT-Mixplus model can securely perform classification on encrypted data without compromising utility. To improve feature extraction and enhance prediction accuracy in sentiment classification, ALBERT-Mixplus incorporates two core components: 1. A meta-information extraction layer, employing a lightweight pre-trained ALBERT model to capture extensive general semantic knowledge and thereby bolster robustness to noise. 2. A hybrid feature-extraction layer, which fuses a bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) with a multi-scale convolutional neural network (MCNN) to capture both global contextual dependencies and fine-grained local semantic features across multiple scales. Together, these layers enrich the model’s deep feature representations. Experimental results on the TAD-2023 and SST-2 datasets demonstrate that BHE+ALBERT-Mixplus achieves competitive improvements in key evaluation metrics compared to mainstream models, despite a slight increase in computational overhead. The proposed framework enables secure analysis of diverse student feedback while preserving data privacy. This allows marginalized student groups to benefit equally from AI-driven insights, thereby embodying the principles of educational equity and inclusive education. Moreover, through its innovative distributed encryption workflow, the model enhances computational efficiency while promoting environmental sustainability by reducing energy consumption and optimizing resource allocation.