The role of the privacy impact assessment in IT Innovation in Crises: An Example

Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) are increasingly used and, in certain jurisdictions, legally mandated in projects to foresee risks to privacy and to plan strategies to avoid these. Once adopted and implemented, the EU’s Data Protection Regulation will, in certain circumstances require the need for a PIA. This short paper focuses upon the PIA process in an EU-funded project to develop cloud-based disaster response technology. It introduces the project and then gives a background to the PIA process. Insights and observations are then made on how the PIA operates, with the aim of drawing conclusions that can both improve the current project and be transferable to others.