Following previous work in the field of privacy engineering, in the end of 2016 the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) presents the ‘PETs control matrix’ - an assessment framework and tool for the systematic presentation and evaluation of online and mobile privacy tools for end users. The term ‘PET’ is used in the context of this work with a narrow focus, addressing standalone privacy tools or services (and not the broader concept of privacy enhancing technologies).
The defined framework relies on a set of assessment criteria, which can be broken down into specific parameters and assessment points, acting as indicators of certain properties and features of the tools. A distinction is made between generic criteria (applicable to all tools) and specific criteria (addressing technical characteristics of different categories of tools). For the purpose of this work, the following categories of PETs have been considered: secure messaging, virtual private networks (VPNs), anonymizing networks, and anti-tracking tools (for online browsing).
The ‘PETs control matrix’ is the implementation of the proposed methodology into a practical tool that can be used for performing the assessment of a PET and presenting the relevant results. As such, it comprises different sets of detailed assessment questions (and relevant closed sets of answers) corresponding to the predefined assessment criteria.In this way, the ‘PETs control matrix’ can facilitate a standardized and clear presentation of different privacy tools, supporting the possibility of comparative assessments.
You could find more information and download the full report as well as the Excel tool and assessment questions here.
The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) is a centre of expertise for cyber security in Europe. Follow more news from ENISA here.