Stephen Wicker & Dawn E. Schrader, Privacy-Aware Engineering Design Practices for Mobile Networks

Stephen Wicker & Dawn E. Schrader, Privacy-Aware Engineering Design Practices for Mobile Networks

Comment by: Lance Hoffman

PLSC 2009

Workshop draft abstract:

In this paper we propose a framework for the development of privacy-aware engineering design practices.  A brief overview of the various forms that the invasion of privacy can take is provided, reiterating the taxonomy developed by Daniel Solove in Understanding Privacy (2008).  Various perspectives on the harm that may be caused through loss of privacy are then considered, both in terms of the individual and the public acting in concert.  Emphasis is placed on the potential for inhibited epistemic growth and potential damage to public institutions.  We conclude that information system design policies that ignore privacy considerations are harmful, and that information engineers have a moral obligation to protect the privacy interests of the public that extends well beyond current legal requirements.  We then review the Fair Information Practices proposed in Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens (1973), and show how they can be translated into privacy-aware engineering design policies.  These rules begin with an absolute imperative to limit information collection to explicit and publicly expressed mission requirements.  We then show that this simple imperative flows into a mandate for distributed information processing, anonymity-preserving information routing and tracking functions, and strong distinctions between identifying active equipment and identifying operators and owners.  We show that privacy-invading design decisions were made (without malice) in the development of cellular technology, and then show how the proposed design rules can guide the development of near-term power consumption monitoring technologies in general, and demand response systems in particular.