GDPR

GDPR applies to any organization that processes personal data of EU residents — regardless of where the organization is headquartered. The regulation establishes rights for data subjects (access, rectification, erasure, portability), mandates lawful bases for processing, and requires data protection by design and by default. Fines can reach €20M or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Privacy by Design — Article 25 of GDPR — is the principle that data protection must be considered from the first system design decision, not appended afterward. This means data minimization is enforced at the architecture level, retention policies are automated rather than manual, consent is captured and stored in a way that is auditable, and data subject rights are implemented as functional system capabilities rather than manual processes.

The territorial scope of GDPR is one of its most misunderstood aspects. A US company with no EU presence that processes data of EU residents must still comply. A UK company post-Brexit must comply with UK GDPR (a near-identical framework) and may also need EU GDPR adequacy decisions for cross-border transfers.

We build GDPR compliance into data pipeline architecture — enforcing purpose limitation and data minimization at the schema design level, automating retention and deletion workflows, and implementing data subject rights as system-level API endpoints. Our teams understand cross-border transfer mechanisms including Standard Contractual Clauses.

Compliance-Native Architecture Guide

Design principles and a structured checklist for building software that is compliant by default — not compliant by retrofit. Covers data architecture, access controls, audit trails, and vendor due diligence.