Glossary · Security & governance
Purpose Limitation
For personal data, collecting and using it only for specified, explicit purposes unless a new use has an appropriate compatible or authorized basis.
Why it matters
Data that was acceptable for one workflow can create privacy and governance risk when silently reused for model training, evaluation, personalization, or unrelated analytics.
In practice
Record the purpose with each dataset, check new pipelines against it before access, separate incompatible uses, and require a documented decision when the purpose changes.
Common confusion
Purpose limitation governs why data is used. Data minimization governs how much data that purpose actually requires.
Related terms
Sources
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