The Evolving Path of “the Right to Be Left Alone” - When Privacy Meets Technology

This paper deals with the hot, evergreen topic of the relationship between privacy and technology. We give extensive motivation for why the privacy debate is still alive for private citizens and institutions, and we investigate the privacy concept. This paper proposes a novel vision of the privacy ecosystem, introducing privacy dimensions, the related users' expectations, the privacy violations, and the changing factors. We provide a critical assessment of the Privacy by Design paradigm, strategies, tactics, patterns, and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, highlighting the current open issues. We believe that promising approaches to tackle the privacy challenges move in two directions: (i) identification of effective privacy metrics; and (ii) adoption of formal tools to design privacy-compliant applications.