Short paper: Integrating the data protection impact assessment into the software development lifecycle

Abstract

Recent years have seen many privacy violations that have cost both the users of software systems and the businesses that run them in a variety of ways. One potential cause of these violations may be the ad hoc nature of the implementation of privacy measures within software systems, which may stem from the poor representation of privacy within many Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC) processes. We propose to give privacy a higher priority within the SDLC through the creation of a confederated Privacy-Aware SDLC (PASDLC) which incorporates the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) lifecycle. The PASDLC brings stakeholders of the software system closer together through the implementation of multiple interception points, whilst prompting the stakeholders to consider privacy within the software system. We consider many challenges to the creation of the PASDLC, including potential communication issues from confederating the processes of a SDLC and the effective measurement of privacy as an attribute of a software system.