Privacy by Design (PbD) - Seven Foundational Principles 2: Principle 2: Privacy as the Default Setting

Deliver the greatest degree of privacy by making personal data automatically protected in every IT system and business practice, so that an individual who does nothing keeps their privacy intact and needs to take no action to protect it. As privacy by default, this draws on four fair information practices: purpose specification (before or when information is gathered, tell the individual why it is being gathered, used, kept and passed on, and keep those purposes clear, narrow and relevant); collection limitation (collect fairly, lawfully and only what the specified purposes need); data minimisation (keep identifiable collection to a strict minimum, design programs, technologies and systems to start from non-identifiable interactions and transactions by default, and reduce identifiability, observability and linkability wherever possible); and use, retention and disclosure limitation (confine use, retention and disclosure to the purposes identified and consented to unless law requires otherwise, keep information only as long as those purposes need and then destroy it securely). Where the need for or use of personal information is unclear, presume privacy and apply the precautionary principle, making the most privacy-protective setting the default.