Engineering Privacy Revisited

Problem statement: Information Privacy Engineering (IPE) is the field that studies the protection of privacy in information and communication systems. The theoretical, technological and applications aspects of IPE require a framework that provides a general view and a systematic structure for the discipline’s topics. This study discusses certain characteristics of such a framework and proposes enhancing and strengthening its structure. Approach: Several important problems and their solutions are presented through recasting of some current proposed approaches to Personal Identifiable Information (PII) definitions and handling. Results: A new framework is presented that is based on flow-based model, along with generic operations performed on PII. Conclusion: This study shows that the flow-based model can provide a structure that complements current efforts to develop a framework for IPE.