Better Data Protection by Design Through Multicriteria Decision Making: On False Tradeoffs Between Privacy and Utility

Abstract

Data Protection by Design (DPbD, also known as Privacy by Design) has received much attention in recent years as a method for building data protection into IT systems from the start. In the EU, DPbD will become mandatory from 2018 onwards under the GDPR. In earlier work, we emphasized the multidisciplinary nature of DPbD. The present paper builds on this to argue that DPbD also needs a multicriteria approach that goes beyond the traditional focus on (data) privacy (even if understood in its multiple meanings).

The paper is based on the results of a survey (n = 101) among employees of a large institution concerning the introduction of technology that tracks some of their behaviour. Even though a substantial portion of respondents are security/privacy researchers, concerns revolved strongly around social consequences of the technology change, usability issues, and transparency. The results taken together indicate that the decrease in privacy through data collection was associated with (a) an increase in accountability, (b) the blocking of non-authorized uses of resources, (c) a decrease in usability, (d) an altered perception of a communal space, (e) altered actions in the communal space, and (f) an increased salience of how decisions are made and communicated. These results call into question the models from computer science/data mining that posit a privacy-utility tradeoff. Instead, this paper argues, multicriteria notions of utility are needed, and this leads to design spaces in which less privacy may be associated with less utility rather than be compensated for by more utility, as the standard tradeoff models suggest. The paper concludes with an outlook on activities aimed at raising awareness and bringing the wider notion of DPbD into decision processes.