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Converting BPMN Diagrams to Privacy Calculus

Georgios V. Pitsiladis, Petros S. Stefaneas

TL;DR

This paper presents how (a subset of) BPMN diagrams can be converted to Privacy Calculus terms, in the hope that it will serve as a small piece of larger workflows for building privacy-preserving software.

Abstract

The ecosystem of Privacy Calculus is a formal framework for privacy comprising (a) the Privacy Calculus, a Turing-complete language of message-exchanging processes based on the pi-calculus, (b) a privacy policy language, and (c) a type checker that checks adherence of Privacy Calculus terms to privacy policies. BPMN is a standard for the graphical description of business processes which aims to be understandable by all business users, from those with no technical background to those implementing software. This paper presents how (a subset of) BPMN diagrams can be converted to Privacy Calculus terms, in the hope that it will serve as a small piece of larger workflows for building privacy-preserving software. The conversion is described mathematically in the paper, but has also been implemented as a software tool.

Converting BPMN Diagrams to Privacy Calculus

TL;DR

This paper presents how (a subset of) BPMN diagrams can be converted to Privacy Calculus terms, in the hope that it will serve as a small piece of larger workflows for building privacy-preserving software.

Abstract

The ecosystem of Privacy Calculus is a formal framework for privacy comprising (a) the Privacy Calculus, a Turing-complete language of message-exchanging processes based on the pi-calculus, (b) a privacy policy language, and (c) a type checker that checks adherence of Privacy Calculus terms to privacy policies. BPMN is a standard for the graphical description of business processes which aims to be understandable by all business users, from those with no technical background to those implementing software. This paper presents how (a subset of) BPMN diagrams can be converted to Privacy Calculus terms, in the hope that it will serve as a small piece of larger workflows for building privacy-preserving software. The conversion is described mathematically in the paper, but has also been implemented as a software tool.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 36 sections, 26 equations, 4 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Business Process Model and Notation
  3. Events
  4. Activities
  5. Tasks:
  6. Sub-Processes:
  7. Flows
  8. Sequence Flows:
  9. Message Flows:
  10. Gateways
  11. Privacy Calculus
  12. Converting BPMN to Privacy Calculus
  13. Main considerations regarding conversion
  14. Flow patterns
  15. Sequence:
  16. ...and 21 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Two diagrams of BPMN Processes.
  • Figure 2: A BPMN diagram depicting a Collaboration. Here, the "Service" Pool has two Sub-Processes. These Sub-Processes have multiple (parallel) instances, indicated by the parallel lines at their bottom.
  • Figure 3: The rules of labelled transition semantics of the Privacy Calculus. $\mathop{\mathrm{fn}}\limits(X)$ is the set of free names of the term $X$, while $\mathop{\mathrm{bn}}\limits(X)$ is the set of its bound names. Rules that contain the variable $F$ are applicable both to processes and systems.
  • Figure 4: A screenshot of the web app presented in \ref{['sect:converter-app']}. At the left, the imported diagram is shown and a new one can be uploaded. The middle part contains the extra information that the user needs to fill; for ease of use, the relevant Flow Nodes are highlighted when the user selects a question. The right part contains the Maude module created by the app (or the latest error that occurred).