At every step and often unconsciously we are being monitored by different information systems. How often do we notice a surveillance camera and ask ourselves what is this camera for? Where is the image transmitted to? Who sits behind the monitor and observes the action? Will my picture be stored? Is behind it an algorithm that recognizes who and when has walked by?
These are the questions that everyone should take into consideration. Especially careful should be information system developers of either hardware or software. When we put the finger on the biometric sensor at the door, we have already passed our personal biometric data of the fingerprint to the information system. At this point we lose the track of our personal data and how our data will be processed. There is no other choice but to trust the system that it will process our personal data only for the purpose of opening the door. This is the boundary of the Information Commissioners work, who's duty is to check whether the personal data is being treated accordingly to the law, standards and best practices.
Even at the stage of development of the information system, the developing engineer should pay attention to increase the data security to maximum possible level. Special consideration should be taken into account regarding the personal data during the whole data lifetime cycle. Since the systems are becoming more and more complex and so does the legislation and standards, the information system developer can find useful the methods of performing the privacy impact analysis, This paper tries to help the developer to more easily perform the privacy impact assessment.
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