English

Towards a Goal-Centric Assessment of Requirements Engineering Methods for Privacy by Design

Software Engineering 2026-03-11 v2 Computers and Society

Abstract

Implementing privacy by design (PbD) according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is met with a growing number of requirements engineering (RE) approaches. However, the question of which RE method for PbD fits best the goals of organisations remains a challenge. We report our endeavor to close this gap by synthesizing a goal-centric approach for PbD methods assessment. We used literature review, interviews, and validation with practitioners to achieve the goal of our study. As practitioners do not approach PbD systematically, we suggest that RE methods for PbD should be assessed against organisational goals, rather than process characteristics only. We hope that, when further developed, the goal-centric approach could support the development, selection, and tailoring of RE practices for PbD.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.16080,
  title  = {Towards a Goal-Centric Assessment of Requirements Engineering Methods for Privacy by Design},
  author = {Oleksandr Kosenkov and Ehsan Zabardast and Jannik Fischbach and Tony Gorschek and Daniel Mendez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.16080},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

The paper has been accepted for the 32nd International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2026)