Enabling Quantum Privacy and Security by Design: Imperatives for Contemporary State-of-the-Art in Quantum Software Engineering

Abstract

With the advent of Quantum Computing and its exponential research endeavors in the past couple of decades, we are looking at a Golden Era of Quantum Computing. We are transitioning into an age of Hybrid Classical-Quantum Computers, where the quantum computational resources are selectively harnessed for resource-intensive tasks. On the one hand, Quantum Computing promises immense future computational innovation, and it also comes with privacy and security challenges. To date, Privacy by Design (PbD) and Security by Design (SbD) frameworks and guidelines in the Quantum Software Engineering (QSE) domain are still nebulous, and there are no comprehensive studies on the same. In this study, therefore, we identify the current state-of-the-art in the relevant literature and investigate the principles of PbD and SbD in the domain of QSE. This is the first study to identify state-of-the-art Quantum PbD and Quantum SbD in QSE. Furthermore, we also identified the gaps in the current literature, which were extended into action points for a robust literature for Quantum PbD and SbD. We recognize the crucial role of researchers, academics, and professionals in the field of Quantum Computing and Software Engineering in conducting more empirical studies and shaping the future of PbD and SbD principles in QSE.