Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/2209249.2209263
Viewpoint
The Challenges
of Privacy by design
PriVACY MAinTenAnCe And control is a social value deeply embedded in our societies. A global survey foundthat88%ofpeopleare
worried about who has access to their
data; over 80% expect governments to
regulate privacy and impose penalties
on companies that do not use data responsibly. But privacy regulation is not
easy. The Internet’s current economics
as well as national security management benefit from the collection and
use of rich user profiles. Technology
constantly changes. And data is like
water: it flows and ripples in ways that
are difficult to predict. As a result, even
a well-conceived, general, and sustainable privacy regulation, such as the
European Data Protection Directive
95/46/EC, struggles to ensure its effectiveness. Companies regularly test
legal boundaries and many risk sanctions for privacy breaches to avoid constraining their business.
Against this background, the European Commission and other regulatory bodies are looking for a more
effective, system- and context-specific
balance between citizens’ privacy
rights and the data needs of companies and governments. The apparent
solution proposed by regulators now,
but barely specified, is Privacy by Design (PbD). At first sight, the powerful term seems to suggest we simply
need to take a few Privacy-Enhancing
Technologies (PETs) and add a good
dose of security, thereby creating a
fault-proof systems’ landscape for
the future. But the reality is much
more challenging. According to Ann
Cavoukian, the Ontario information
and privacy commissioner who first
coined the term, PbD stands for a pro-
active integration of technical privacy
principles in a system’s design (such
as privacy default settings or end-to-
end security of personal data) and the
recognition of privacy in a company’s
risk management processes. 1 PbD can
thus be defined as “an engineering
and strategic management approach
that commits to selectively and sus-
tainably minimize information sys-
tems’ privacy risks through technical
and governance controls.”
