There are provided an apparatus and a method for privacy protection in association rule mining among data mining technologies. An apparatus for privacy protection in association rule mining according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises: a fake transaction inserter that generates fake transactions of a predetermined number each having a predetermined length and inserts the fake transactions between a plurality of transactions comprised in an original data set to generate a first virtual data set; and a distortion transaction generator that generates a second virtual data set by converting data of the transaction of the first virtual data set with a predetermined probability.