PIAF: A Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for Data Protection and Privacy Rights

PIAF (A Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for data protection and privacy rights) was a European Union (EU) co-funded research project that aimed to encourage the EU and its Member States to adopt a progressive privacy impact assessment policy as a means of addressing needs and challenges related to privacy and to the processing of personal data.

The 22-month project included, in its first phase, a review of privacy impact assessment policies and practices in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, the US and UK to identify which elements may be used effectively to construct a model framework applicable to the EU. The first deliverable was published in September 2011. In the second phase, the partners concluded empirical research with regard to factors that affect the adoption of a PIA policy in the EU Member States, which led to the second deliverable, published in August 2012. Both phases concluded with workshops (one in Brussels on 12 October 2011 and another in Sopot, Poland, on 24 April 2012) where the findings were presented and discussed. The final conference took place in Brussels on 27 September 2012. The PIAF partners followed these developments with the third deliverable, containing recommendations to the European Commission and the EU Member States as well as to organisations carrying out PIA. In addition, the partners have presented the project’s findings at numerous third-party workshops and conferences and prepared several papers in scholarly publications.