What is the key privacy objective in undertaking an evaluation of technical controls?

The primary objective of evaluating technical controls is to ensure they are effectively designed and implemented to protect personal data and uphold privacy principles within an organization's systems. This process involves systematically identifying potential privacy risks—such as unauthorized access, data leakage, or improper data retention—that arise from data processing activities and technical infrastructure. The ultimate goal is to assess the adequacy of controls like encryption, access management, and data masking, and then to implement remediation or mitigation strategies to reduce these identified risks to an acceptable level.

A. This is incorrect because evaluating training effectiveness is a review of administrative or organizational controls, not technical ones.

B. This is too broad. While the results of a technical evaluation contribute to assessing the overall privacy framework, its specific objective is more granular and risk-focused.

C. This is too narrow. Evaluating technical controls applies to both internal systems and third-party services, not exclusively to third-party risk.

1. Densmore

R. (2021). Privacy Program Management: Tools for Managing Privacy Within Your Organization (3rd ed.). IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals).

Page 133

Chapter 4: In the context of a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)

the text states

"A PIA is an analysis of the privacy risks associated with processing personal information in relation to a project

product or service." The evaluation of technical controls is a core component of this risk analysis and subsequent mitigation.

Page 185

Chapter 5: Discussing technical controls

the text explains their role in protecting data. For example

regarding access controls

it states their purpose is to "restrict access to data and functionality to that which is required for an individual to perform their job." This directly links the control to mitigating the risk of unauthorized access.

2. Cavoukian

A. (2011). Privacy by Design: The 7 Foundational Principles. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

Canada.

Principle 2: Privacy as the Default Setting: This principle emphasizes the need to build in technical and operational measures to ensure personal data is automatically protected in any given IT system or business practice. Evaluating technical controls is essential to verify that these default protections are functioning to mitigate privacy risks from the outset.

3. Gürses

S.

& van Hoboken

J. (2017). Privacy after the agile turn. In The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy. Cambridge University Press.

Section on Privacy Engineering

pp. 235-237: The authors discuss how privacy engineering involves translating legal and policy requirements into technical specifications and controls. The evaluation of these controls is a critical feedback loop to "identify and mitigate privacy risks" that may emerge during the system development lifecycle

confirming that the technical implementation effectively addresses privacy threats. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316831960.013)