GDPR for Developers: What the Regulation Actually Means in Code

Short summary

GDPR is an engineering constraint affecting schema design and data handling, not just legal checkboxes. Core violations: schema bloat (collecting unused data), exposing production PII in staging, and soft-deleting instead of true erasure. Fix them by documenting column purposes, automating PII anonymization before staging refreshes, and overwriting personal data on user deletion.

• •Schema bloat violates data minimization—document purpose for every column or drop it
• •Never move production PII to staging without automated anonymization in CI/CD
• •True erasure means overwriting data, not soft-deletes; maintain tombstones for referential integrity

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