What is Privacy Engineering in Cybersecurity?


As data travels to the cloud, meetings migrate online, or acquire online components, some of which are likely to continue in the future, cybersecurity becomes increasingly critical.

Privacy is a major factor in cybersecurity. Consumer decisions are influenced by privacy problems; a good reputation can attract consumers, while a data breach is likely to drive them away. This is especially concerning for businesses that manage huge volumes of personally identifiable information such as healthcare and financial institutions. Customers are put in grave danger when such information is leaked into the world, and it is worth a lot of money to criminals.

New disciplines emerge as the cybersecurity sector evolves in its attempt to fight hackers and protect consumers and employees. Privacy Engineering is one of these younger disciplines. Let’s take a closer look at how this relates to cybersecurity.

What is Privacy Engineering?

Privacy Engineering is a method for incorporating privacy into the design and development of IT systems at all stages of their lifecycle. It combines approaches, tools, and measures to operationalize the Privacy by Design (PbD) paradigm and enables us to build privacy-protecting systems. With the pandemic, digital innovation is more vital than ever, placing PbD in the limelight even more. The goal of privacy engineering is for Privacy by Design to become the de facto norm for IT systems.

Some practitioners regard it as process management, while others regard it as technical expertise. Both perspectives appear to be equally legitimate and important. Today’s privacy engineers are found in product development teams, design teams, IT teams, security teams, and, yes, even legal and compliance teams.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines privacy engineering as follows: “Privacy Engineering provides suggestions on how to reduce privacy concerns and enable enterprises to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and effective control implementation in information systems.”

Role of Privacy Engineers

Privacy engineers strive to design solutions that secure personal information and limit the risk of human mistakes without making systems more difficult to use or adding to commercial problems. They reside at the crossroads of law and compliance, as well as emerging trends like multi-cloud SaaS, remote workforces, and agile development.

Privacy engineering is primarily technical and only lightly touches on social aspects such as employee training, but it can help determine how employee training should be conducted and what the human risks are (it’s worth noting that the majority of data breaches are caused by social engineering or human error).

How Does Privacy Engineering Matter in Cybersecurity?

Privacy engineering is also becoming more prominent as a result of new technologies and the rise of software-as-a-service. Larger organizations can no longer afford to ignore cybersecurity, while smaller businesses are frequently forced to hire outside help.

Privacy engineering is a strategy that allows a corporation to create and alter technology to meet their individual privacy demands rather than providing one-size-fits-all solutions. The amount and kind of security required are heavily influenced by compliance and consumer expectations.

Privacy engineering has a lot of benefits when it comes to cybersecurity. By implementing privacy at the foundational level, you can limit the number of costly changes while also safeguarding your consumers more effectively. This also helps to defend your company’s reputation while also increasing profits.

  • The GDPR’s Article 25 utilizes the phraseology “privacy by design and by default,” which is effectively the same principle, although privacy engineering is not needed by name for compliance. Because attorneys don’t understand the technology and engineers don’t understand the law, privacy engineers can assist in guaranteeing that problems don’t arise. A privacy engineer can also collaborate with third-party audit suppliers to ensure that businesses only purchase software that addresses privacy concerns.

  • Organizations must take technological and organizational steps to guarantee that “only the personal data required for each specified processing purpose is handled.” This responsibility applies to the quantity of personal data gathered, the extent to which it is processed, the length of time it is kept, and its accessibility.” The GDPR makes it clear that obligations must be implemented into goods as well as policies and practices. Meeting these criteria is difficult when attorneys are unfamiliar with new technologies or technological techniques or when product, design, or engineering teams are unfamiliar with privacy concepts.

  • The California Consumer Privacy Act makes a less direct request for privacy engineering. It necessitates that privacy experts have a better grasp of how suppliers evaluate, use, and share the personal data that companies offer. This necessitates a thorough grasp of technology and business procedures, particularly those involving data analytics and targeted advertising. Vendors will be classified as service providers or third parties based on their technical expertise and whether or not “do not sell” regulations apply to them. It will assist firms in determining if contract revisions are required, and the extent to which doing business with specific vendors raises the risk of privacy breaches.

Privacy protection continues to be a top issue for individuals, businesses, and governments all around the world. Consumers expect personalized content and service delivery, but they also want privacy measures at all costs, and they want businesses and governments to protect their customers’ data.

  • Consumers want businesses to be transparent about how they store, manage, and use personal data.

  • They are highly worried about how new technologies like AI exploit their personal information, and any type of misuse utterly undermines their confidence.

  • Many customers are skeptical that private enterprises would adhere to/have in place rules and compliances to protect their personal information. As a result, individuals rely on their government to secure their personal information through laws, rules, and other enforcement measures.

Pros and Cons of Privacy Engineering

Following are some of the advantages of Privacy Engineering −

  • It reduces the reliance on third-party security enforcement

  • Because privacy is built into the architecture, it is the default setting. It offers preventative rather than reactive protection.

  • It delivers end-to-end security and entire system lifecycle protection.

  • It protects user privacy and guarantees that technology and systems are designed with the user in mind.

  • It aids organizations in gaining client trust and avoiding penalties and liabilities in the future.

Following are some of the disadvantages of Privacy Engineering −

  • Requires legislation and policies, the majority of which are currently in the works.

  • Violations may occur as a result of design or development errors, bad actors, government demands, the availability of new technology, and so on.

  • Some may find it prohibitively expensive to implement since it necessitates the use of expert engineers.

  • Some may see it as a barrier to innovation.

Updated on: 22-Jun-2022

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