Data Protection Tensions in Recent Software Development Trends

Abstract

Privacy by design and data protection by design focus mostly on product/service features, high-level design, security measures and organizational practices. However, low-level implementation details can also have a data protection impact that may need to be taken into account. This contribution discusses three emerging software development trends (immutability, schema-less databases and reactive programming) that are not yet well-known outside the software development sector. Each of these trends relies on ideas that may at first glance seem discordant with fundamental data protection principles (such as data quality, data minimization and data retention limitations). Even so, upon closer inspection, they also offer direct or indirect data protection benefits. Depending on the circumstances, the use of these trends may therefore be beneficial or even advisable from a data protection perspective. It nevertheless remains difficult to assess to which extent the new Data Protection Regulation will require these aspects to be integrated into data protection impact assessments and data protection by design/default compliance processes.