Given a joint distribution $P_{XY}$ of random variables $X,Y$ on finite alphabets, the information bottleneck method seeks a representation $T$ of $X$ that is as informative as possible about $Y$ while compressing $X$; the privacy funnel asks for a representation that discloses much about $X$ while leaking little about $Y$. In both scenarios $T$ and $Y$ are conditionally independent given $X$. We show that computing the optimal value $\operatorname{IB}(P_{XY},R) = \sup_T \{ I(Y;T) : I(X;T) \le R \}$ of the information bottleneck problem, as well as its Lagrangian relaxation $L_β(P_{XY}) = \sup_T [ I(Y;T) - βI(X;T) ]$, is NP-hard. Moreover, unless $\mathrm{P} = \mathrm{NP}$, neither $\operatorname{IB}(P_{XY},R)$ nor $L_β(P_{XY})$ can be approximated in polynomial time within an additive error of order $|\mathcal{X}|^{-(1+α)}$, for every fixed $α> 0$. We also prove that computing the privacy funnel $\operatorname{PF}(P_{XY},r) = \inf_T \{ I(Y;T) : I(X;T) \ge r \}$ and its Lagrangian relaxation $Λ_β(P_{XY}) = \inf_T [ I(Y;T) - βI(X;T) ]$ is NP-hard, and that, unless $\mathrm{P} = \mathrm{NP}$, neither can be approximated in polynomial time within an additive error of order $|\mathcal{X}|^{-2}$.

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