// THREAT DETECTION AND DATA PRIVACY TERM
Purpose Limitation
Purpose Limitation is a principle stating that personal data collected for a specific reason should only be used for that reason, and not for other, unrelated purposes without proper permission or legal justification. This helps protect individual privacy by preventing the misuse of information.
TECHNICAL DEFINITION
Purpose Limitation is a foundational data protection principle, mandated by privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, dictating that personal data must be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not subsequently processed in a way incompatible with those original purposes, thereby restricting data usage to ensure individual privacy and prevent unauthorized exploitation. This principle limits how organizations can use and retain collected data.
BACKGROUND
The Artificial Intelligence Act is a European Union regulation concerning artificial intelligence (AI). It establishes a common regulatory and legal framework for AI within the European Union (EU). The regulation entered into force on 1 August 2024, with provisions that shall come into operation gradually over the following 6 to 36 months.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIASYNONYMS & ALIASES
- Data use restriction
- Use limitation
- Specific purpose principle
- Data purpose restriction
- Purpose restriction
USAGE NOTE
It is a core tenet in data privacy frameworks, requiring organizations to justify and restrict their data processing activities to stated objectives.
DEVELOPERS
Organizations developing technology related to Purpose Limitation.
IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of security and data governance solutions, including IBM Security Guardium and IBM OpenPages, which help organizations define, monitor, and enforce data usage policies, directly supporting the principle of purpose limitation for sensitive information.
Microsoft provides robust compliance and data governance tools within Azure and Microsoft 365, such as Azure Information Protection and Azure Purview, enabling organizations to classify, protect, and manage data according to specific, defined purposes.
OneTrust is a leading privacy management platform that offers solutions for data mapping, consent management, and GRC, directly enabling organizations to track and enforce purpose limitation by understanding and managing how data is collected and used.
BigID specializes in data discovery, classification, and privacy management, helping organizations identify sensitive data across their landscape and apply policies to ensure its use aligns with specific, legitimate purposes, thereby enforcing purpose limitation.
Forcepoint offers data loss prevention (DLP) and user behavior analytics solutions that monitor and control how sensitive data is used and exfiltrated, enforcing policies related to data purpose and preventing unauthorized use or sharing.
SailPoint provides identity governance solutions that manage and control access to data and systems, ensuring that only authorized individuals and processes can access specific data for its intended and defined purpose.
Privitar develops privacy engineering software that enables organizations to safely use and share sensitive data by applying techniques like anonymization and pseudonymization, ensuring data utility while adhering to privacy principles like purpose limitation.
Palo Alto Networks integrates data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities and cloud security features across its platform to help enforce policies on data movement and usage, critical for maintaining purpose limitation within various operational contexts, including defense.