Privacy by Design – providing a proactive approach to privacy protection
On the 26 November 2008, the Information Commissioner’s Office hosted the ‘Privacy by Design’ conference at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester.
The centrepiece of the conference was the launch of an ICO commissioned report promoting the concept of privacy by design. The report, commissioned from the Enterprise Privacy Group, explores the barriers to widespread uptake of privacy enhancing technologies and the means of designing privacy protection into plans and projects. It also looks at some of the solutions available and recommends what can be done to improve the level of engagement in this area.
After a series of high profile data losses over the last year and the final report from the Home Affairs Committee into ’the Surveillance Society’, the conference looked at the significant benefits of considering privacy and building in ‘Privacy by Design’ from first principles. Adopting this approach should be an essential feature of any development which carries risks to individuals’ personal information and to the public’s trust and confidence in those who hold information about them.
The following reports were also launched at the conference:
Empowering individuals to control their personal information
In Spring 2008 the ICO, in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board and Cybersecurity KTN, funded a working group to discuss issues of identity and personal information management. In December, e-dentity published a discussion paper entitled “Empowering individuals to control their personal information”.