Privacy by design in systems for assisted living, personalised care, and wellbeing: A stakeholder analysis

Abstract

Privacy by design within a system for assisted living, personalised care, and wellbeing is crucial to protect users from misuse of the data collected about their health. Especially if the information is collected through audio–video devices, the question is even more delicate due to the nature of these data. In addition to guaranteeing a high level of privacy, it is necessary to reassure end users about the correct use of these streams. The evolution of data analysis techniques began to take on an important role and increasingly defined characteristics in recent years. The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it presents a state of the art about privacy in European Active Healthy Ageing/Active Healthy Ageing projects, with a focus on those related to audio and video processing. On the other hand, it proposes a methodology, developed in the context of the European project PlatfromUptake.eu, to identify clusters of stakeholders and application dimensions (technical, contextual, and business), define their characteristics, and show how privacy constraints affect them. From this study, we then generated a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis in which we aim to identify the critical features connected to the selection and involvement of relevant stakeholders for the success of a project. Applying this type of methodology to the initial stages of a project allows understanding of which privacy issues could be related to the various stakeholder groups and which problems can then affect the correct development of the project. The idea is, therefore, to suggest a privacy-by-design approach according to the categories of stakeholders and project dimensions. The analysis will cover technical aspects, legislative and policies-related aspects also regarding the point of view of the municipalities, and aspects related to the acceptance and, therefore, to the perception of the safety of these technologies by the final end users.