Privacy by evidence: a software development methodology to provide privacy assurance.

Abstract

In anincreasinglyconnectedworld,adiversityofsoftwareandsensorscollectdatafromthe environmentanditsinhabitants.Becauseoftherichnessoftheinformationcollected,privacy becomes animportantrequirement.Applicationsarebeingdeveloped,and,althoughthere are principlesandrulesregardingtheprivacyofindividuals,thereisstillalackofmethod- ologies toguidetheintegrationofprivacyguidelinesintothedevelopmentprocess.Existing methodologies likethe Privacy byDesign (PbD) arestillvagueandleavemanyopenques- tions onhowtoapplytheminpractice.Inthisworkweproposetheconceptof Privacy by Evidence (PbE), asoftwaredevelopmentmethodologytoprovideprivacyassurance.Given the difficultyinprovidingtotalprivacyinmanyapplications,weproposetodocumentthe mitigationsinformofevidencesofprivacy,aimingtoincreasetheconfidenceoftheproject. Tovalidateitseffectiveness, PbE has beenusedduringthedevelopmentoffourapplications that serveascasestudies.Thefirstconsideredcasestudyisasmartmeteringapplication; the secondconsidersapeoplecountingandmonitoringapplication;thethirdconsidersan energyefficiencymonitoringsystem;andthefourthconsidersatwofactorauthentication system. Fortheseapplications,theteamswereabletoprovideseven,five,five,andfour evidencesofprivacy,respectively,andweconcludethat PbE can beeffectiveinhelpingto understand andtoaddresstheprivacyprotectionneedswhendevelopingsoftware.