A semi-automated BPMN-based framework for detecting conflicts between security, data-minimization and fairness requirements
A semi-automated BPMN-based framework for detecting conflicts between security, data-minimization and fairness requirements
Requirements are inherently prone to conflicts. Security, data-minimization, and fairness requirements are no exception. Importantly, undetected conflicts between such requirements can lead to severe effects, including privacy infringement and legal sanctions. Detecting conflicts between security, data-minimization, and fairness requirements is a challenging task, as such conflicts are context-specific and their detection requires a thorough understanding of the underlying business processes. For example, a process may require anonymous execution of a task that writes data into a secure data storage, where the identity of the writer is needed for the purpose of accountability. Moreover, conflicts not arise from trade-offs between requirements elicited from the stakeholders, but also from misinterpretation of elicited requirements while implementing them in business processes, leading to a non-alignment between the data subjects’ requirements and their specifications. Both types of conflicts are substantial challenges for conflict detection. To address these challenges, we propose a BPMN-based framework that supports: (i) the design of business processes considering security, data-minimization and fairness requirements, (ii) the encoding of such requirements as reusable, domain-specific patterns, (iii) the checking of alignment between the encoded requirements and annotated BPMN models based on these patterns, and (iv) the detection of conflicts between the specified requirements in the BPMN models based on a catalog of domain-independent anti-patterns. The security requirements were reused from SecBPMN2, a security-oriented BPMN 2.0 extension, while the fairness and data-minimization parts are new. For formulating our patterns and anti-patterns, we extended a graphical query language called SecBPMN2-Q. We report on the feasibility and the usability of our approach based on a case study featuring a healthcare management system, and an experimental user study.
BPMN, Conflicts, Data minimization, Fairness, Requirements engineering, Security
1191-1227
Ramadan, Qusai
27948227-07d5-46bb-960c-36456427a987
Strüber, Daniel
ae70c183-98b8-4354-848f-ff94841329e6
Salnitri, Mattia
0c6f85c2-2437-42a7-9d3c-945b3fc95a55
Jürjens, Jan
725dbc83-3fd3-4831-8dc1-8b7c7f93ce8a
Riediger, Volker
8a2a060e-6a33-48df-beb5-85d5a7f57d64
Staab, Steffen
bf48d51b-bd11-4d58-8e1c-4e6e03b30c49
1 September 2020
Ramadan, Qusai
27948227-07d5-46bb-960c-36456427a987
Strüber, Daniel
ae70c183-98b8-4354-848f-ff94841329e6
Salnitri, Mattia
0c6f85c2-2437-42a7-9d3c-945b3fc95a55
Jürjens, Jan
725dbc83-3fd3-4831-8dc1-8b7c7f93ce8a
Riediger, Volker
8a2a060e-6a33-48df-beb5-85d5a7f57d64
Staab, Steffen
bf48d51b-bd11-4d58-8e1c-4e6e03b30c49
Ramadan, Qusai, Strüber, Daniel, Salnitri, Mattia, Jürjens, Jan, Riediger, Volker and Staab, Steffen
(2020)
A semi-automated BPMN-based framework for detecting conflicts between security, data-minimization and fairness requirements.
Software and Systems Modeling, 19 (5), .
(doi:10.1007/s10270-020-00781-x).
Abstract
Requirements are inherently prone to conflicts. Security, data-minimization, and fairness requirements are no exception. Importantly, undetected conflicts between such requirements can lead to severe effects, including privacy infringement and legal sanctions. Detecting conflicts between security, data-minimization, and fairness requirements is a challenging task, as such conflicts are context-specific and their detection requires a thorough understanding of the underlying business processes. For example, a process may require anonymous execution of a task that writes data into a secure data storage, where the identity of the writer is needed for the purpose of accountability. Moreover, conflicts not arise from trade-offs between requirements elicited from the stakeholders, but also from misinterpretation of elicited requirements while implementing them in business processes, leading to a non-alignment between the data subjects’ requirements and their specifications. Both types of conflicts are substantial challenges for conflict detection. To address these challenges, we propose a BPMN-based framework that supports: (i) the design of business processes considering security, data-minimization and fairness requirements, (ii) the encoding of such requirements as reusable, domain-specific patterns, (iii) the checking of alignment between the encoded requirements and annotated BPMN models based on these patterns, and (iv) the detection of conflicts between the specified requirements in the BPMN models based on a catalog of domain-independent anti-patterns. The security requirements were reused from SecBPMN2, a security-oriented BPMN 2.0 extension, while the fairness and data-minimization parts are new. For formulating our patterns and anti-patterns, we extended a graphical query language called SecBPMN2-Q. We report on the feasibility and the usability of our approach based on a case study featuring a healthcare management system, and an experimental user study.
Text
paper
- Accepted Manuscript
Text
Ramadan2020_Article_ASemi-automatedBPMN-basedFrame
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 17 December 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 February 2020
Published date: 1 September 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Open access funding provided by University of Gothenburg. We wish to thank Paolo Giorgini and the STS tool development team in the University of Trento for providing us with access to the source code of the STS tool. We also thank the participants of our experiment study. We wish to thank the anonymous referees, Julian Flake, and Ahd Al-Salman for their comments that helped us to improve the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
Keywords:
BPMN, Conflicts, Data minimization, Fairness, Requirements engineering, Security
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 437177
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/437177
ISSN: 1619-1366
PURE UUID: 482c0db7-dc19-4993-b8dd-2992d0a85b19
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 21 Jan 2020 17:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:10
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Qusai Ramadan
Author:
Daniel Strüber
Author:
Mattia Salnitri
Author:
Jan Jürjens
Author:
Volker Riediger
Author:
Steffen Staab
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics