# What is Data Privacy?

> Data privacy concerns how data processing affects people and whether collection, inference, use, sharing, retention, and deletion are appropriate for the stated context.

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## Content

It includes expectations, autonomy, transparency, fairness, access and participation, and protection from harmful or unexpected data actions. Privacy is not synonymous with secrecy: publicly available or securely stored data can still be processed in intrusive, unfair, or incompatible ways.

Privacy work translates these concerns into governance, product decisions, operational controls, and methods for identifying and reducing risks to individuals. Applicable rights and duties vary by jurisdiction and relationship, so general practice must be paired with qualified legal analysis.

### Key points

- **Purpose:** Define the intended outcome, assess necessity and proportionality, limit collection and reuse, and identify people who may be affected even when they are not direct users.
- **Transparency and choice:** Provide meaningful information about data practices, enable appropriate choices and requests, and avoid interfaces or policies that obscure material consequences.
- **Context-aware design:** Minimize data, separate incompatible uses, constrain access and retention, evaluate linkability and inference, and test how systems behave across the full lifecycle.
- **Important limitation:** Security and regulatory compliance can support privacy but do not prove it. A secure system may enable inappropriate surveillance or inference, while consent or de-identification does not eliminate every privacy risk.

### Related terms

[Data protection](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/data-protection/>) · [Personally identifiable information (PII)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/personally-identifiable-information/>) · [Data governance](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/data-governance/>) · [General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/general-data-protection-regulation-security/>) · [Data security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/data-security/>) · [HIPAA Security Rule](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/hipaa-security-rule/>)

### Sources

[NIST Privacy Framework 1.0](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/cswp/10/nist-privacy-framework-version-10/final) · [NIST IR 8062: Privacy Engineering and Risk Management](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/ir/8062/final) · [OECD Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data](https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/public/doc/114/body-text.en.html)

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