When dealing with privacy risk assessment of ICT systems, the results of processes are represented by reports that are difficult to reproduce, compare, and audit, affecting the efficiency of decision processes. In this regard, we present an integrated decision-based workflow which combines (i) Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to derive explicit weights for privacy/cost/performance criteria and select the preferred ICT configuration, and (ii) ISO/IEC 27005 to validate the selected configuration from a risk-management perspective (risk register, processing options, residual risk). By means of a case study, we show that alternatives, correctly weighted, that are privacy-oriented can result in being optimal even if their cost results in being higher. The ISO/IEC 27005 layer enforces the quality of the final decision for governance and compliance purposes, guaranteeing the compliance with privacy-by-design/privacy-by-default principles, in a well-spread and accepted form. For the sake of completeness, we report the results of a TOPSIS analysis as a benchmark against an existing baseline study, rather than as a step of the proposed workflow.
Quality Assessment and Privacy/Performance Trade-off in Information Systems
Mastroianni M.
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2026-01-01
Abstract
When dealing with privacy risk assessment of ICT systems, the results of processes are represented by reports that are difficult to reproduce, compare, and audit, affecting the efficiency of decision processes. In this regard, we present an integrated decision-based workflow which combines (i) Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to derive explicit weights for privacy/cost/performance criteria and select the preferred ICT configuration, and (ii) ISO/IEC 27005 to validate the selected configuration from a risk-management perspective (risk register, processing options, residual risk). By means of a case study, we show that alternatives, correctly weighted, that are privacy-oriented can result in being optimal even if their cost results in being higher. The ISO/IEC 27005 layer enforces the quality of the final decision for governance and compliance purposes, guaranteeing the compliance with privacy-by-design/privacy-by-default principles, in a well-spread and accepted form. For the sake of completeness, we report the results of a TOPSIS analysis as a benchmark against an existing baseline study, rather than as a step of the proposed workflow.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
