**6. Conclusion**

This unprecedented era of technology "connectedness" and "big data" has virtually assured that we will never be left entirely alone, and that our views of privacy will be forever changed by the digital means through which we now interact with the world around us [56]. Similarly, this new way of life raises the ever-present specter of devastating privacy risks resulting from cybercrime that compromises or steals the personal data we all generate and share. Given its potential as a pragmatic tool for organizations and data stewards in the war against growing cybercrime threats, Differential Privacy fits well within a situational crime prevention framework and possibly represents a model to guide future privacy requirements engineering and protections directed exclusively at the issue of cybercrime. Therefore, policymakers and practitioners would be well-served to engage in empirical exploration of the implications that Differential Privacy and situational crime prevention collectively have on existing and new forms of cybercrime that are likely to emerge in the future.

*Risks of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Complexity and Implications of Differential Privacy…*

Ultimately, before moving forward with any Differential Privacy or any other privacy-enhancing technologies, data scientists, researchers, and practitioners should collaborate and carefully explore the consequences of this evolution in data protection. Additional resources and effort should be dedicated to the careful appraisal of privacy protections for person-level data in a variety of public and private scenarios. Failure to do so will likely result in more frequent and severe cybercrime breaches of critical infrastructure and significant privacy implications for individuals and groups whose data is widely available and easily accessible.

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92752*

**119**

**Author details**

William Stadler

provided the original work is properly cited.

Saint Martin's University, Lacey, WA, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: wstadler@stmartin.edu

Notwithstanding the practical challenges identified above, there is a continuing need for exploration and development of data privacy and disclosure methods that match our shifting data culture and also maintain the public's trust in institutions and industries [4]. The pursuit of these aims can be achieved through greater consideration of securing software systems early in development and implementation lifecycles and through a more dedicated focus on expanding privacy requirements engineering research [28, 57]. Additional attention should be directed more specifically at Differential Privacy as a unique design and implementation method. Research on the practical application and limitations of privacy enhancing technologies like Differential Privacy within the context of cybercrime remains necessary. In this regard, future studies might wish to employ a "no-free-lunch theorem" and investigate some of the popular misconceptions about Differential Privacy and its vulnerabilities, such as making no assumptions about how data are generated, that it protects personal information despite an attacker having knowledge of other individuals represented in the data, and that it is defensible to arbitrary background knowledge [58]. Doing so would ensure that subsequent use of Differential Privacy does not inadvertently contribute to future privacy-related challenges.

Generally speaking, most research exploring risks to individual privacy have been aimed squarely at consumer protection in the private sector. And while the average consumer should be cautious about the risks associated with sharing data for commercial use, there are other groups for which data privacy becomes a more considerable challenge. Vulnerable populations such as patients, children, the indigent, the elderly, inmates, undocumented immigrants, the civilly committed, and the mentally ill, are some of the most frequently studied populations, but are among the least likely to have the sufficient protections from data privacy intrusions. Efforts should be made to correct this imbalance by finding opportunities to make costly privacy-enhancing technologies available to public sector agencies.

There is also a significant need and opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration with respect to cybercrime and privacy-related research. Scholars from technical and social science disciplines are encouraged to join forces to expand the scope and breadth of research on the many threats to privacy which stem from cybercrime. They should also work together to investigate the variety of promising opportunities for preventing and responding to cybercrime threats, including Differential Privacy. Doing so would undoubtedly contribute to the development and spread of more appropriate and accessible approaches to the preservation of privacy.

*Risks of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Complexity and Implications of Differential Privacy… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92752*

Ultimately, before moving forward with any Differential Privacy or any other privacy-enhancing technologies, data scientists, researchers, and practitioners should collaborate and carefully explore the consequences of this evolution in data protection. Additional resources and effort should be dedicated to the careful appraisal of privacy protections for person-level data in a variety of public and private scenarios. Failure to do so will likely result in more frequent and severe cybercrime breaches of critical infrastructure and significant privacy implications for individuals and groups whose data is widely available and easily accessible.
