Privacy Engineering Methodologies: A survey

Software engineers continue to struggle to create privacy-friendly systems despite having guidelines as Privacy by Design (PbD) and the European Union's (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These guidelines highlight what is needed to achieve greater privacy, but does not specify how to do so. In this paper, we survey 56 academic publications from 2007 to May 2020 discussing the current privacy engineering methodologies and propose a taxonomy based on the theoretical backgrounds and origin of methodology (security-based or privacy-friendly). We found a significant increase in publications after the official implementation of GDPR. Despite an increasing number of solution proposals, there are substantial opportunities for researchers to generate empirical research that validates and evaluates current methodology proposals. Thus delivering better approaches to privacy engineering and protecting individuals' privacy in IT systems.