Privacy Impact Assessment in the UK

Abstract

The adoption of PIAs in the UK is a recent development. Both it, and related initiatives such as “privacy by design”, pioneered by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ann Cavoukian1 (discussed further below), can be seen as indicative of a disenchantment amongst some regulators, including the UK’s national data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), with the largely reactive approach to regulation adopted by the EU Data Protection Directive and the national legislation which implements it.