Data minimisation
Data minimisation limits personal data to what is adequate, relevant and necessary for a defined purpose.
In the EU GDPR context, data minimisation means limiting personal data to the amount needed for a defined purpose. It includes asking whether the task can be fulfilled with less personal information. A small file alone does not demonstrate that.
Explain the purpose of each field
In a fictional support portal, the first check is to match a known software fault. Ticket S-14 contains the application version in appVersion and the error code in errorCode for this purpose. Date of birth and private home address are unnecessary for this check and are not collected. If the team later needs a contact route for a follow-up question, that need must be justified separately.
Hiding a form field does not help if the server still takes the unnecessary value from a profile or writes it to a log. The limitation must also apply to API payloads, logs and onward transfers. A ticket reference may still be linked to a person; reducing the selected data does not automatically make the process anonymous.
The retention policy separately determines how long necessary data remains. Legal basis, access rights and other data protection duties must also be established. Data minimisation is one part of this design, not blanket permission for the remaining processing.
Sources
Related terms
- Data retention policyA data retention policy defines the purpose, start, duration and end of storage. Deletion jobs and copies must be addressed in the implementation.
- Envelope encryptionEnvelope encryption separates the data key from the key protecting it. The encrypted file and wrapped data key need to be managed together.
- Key rotationKey rotation introduces new key material. Older data and backups need a plan for the key versions they still require for decryption.
- Password saltingPassword salting gives each new password hash its own random additional value. The salt is stored alongside it and does not need to be secret.
- Argon2Argon2 is a family of memory-intensive password hash functions. The variant, memory use and runtime must suit security and operational requirements.
- SameSite cookieSameSite affects cookie inclusion in cross-site requests. The choice must fit login and navigation flows; CSRF protection remains necessary.
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