The cheapest time to protect your users' data is before you have any.
Most founders treat privacy as a premium feature for later, when in reality missing privacy is a bug. A really fat and ugly one. Just think of a situation where a big customer asks for your data processing agreement, a user asks you to delete all their data or someone finds a hole to hack. Fixing it then means rebuilding what's already live.
Privacy by design means making these decisions on day one, while they're still cheap and easy. Here are seven principles we built enless on, with how each one looks in practice. Feel free to implement them in your business.
Collect the minimum
For every field in every form, ask: what changes if we don't ask the user for this information? If nothing breaks, don't collect it. Data you never stored can't be leaked, stolen or subpoenaed.
How enless does it
Our colour analysis needs a selfie. We use it once and keep only the result. The photo itself is never stored.
Decide when data dies
Every kind of data needs an end date. When you design a feature, write down how long you'll keep its data. Don't wait until a regulator asks. Then automate the deletion, so you never need a manual clean-up.
How enless does it
For example, disconnecting Pinterest from your enless app deletes everything we stored from it, right away. And our website analytics are deleted after 24 months.
Let users export and delete themselves
The GDPR gives people the right to get a copy of their data or to have it deleted. If that takes an email and a week of manual work, it won't scale and it tells users you'd rather they didn't.
Build both as buttons from the start. It's a few days of work early on and a painful project later.
How enless does it
In the enless app, people export everything we know about them as one file, or delete their account in a few taps. Both work any time, without asking us.
Share totals, never people
If your business model involves partners, they may need the data you collect to make decisions. Give them the insights they need, without providing access to individual user records. For example, share aggregated trends across groups of users rather than personal details or sensitive information. Maybe also add a minimum group size, so a total can never point to one person. This allows your partners to make informed decisions while protecting your users' privacy.
How enless does it
Fashion brands on enless see what their customers own, wear and keep, only as totals, and only once at least three people are counted.
Choose providers you can name
Every service you add, from analytics to email, is another place your users' data lives. Write it down. If you wouldn't be comfortable naming a provider in your privacy policy, don't use it.
- Prefer local providers, or tools you can host yourself
- Sign a data processing agreement with every provider that handles personal data
- Check what each one does without asking you first, like tracking or cookies
How enless does it
Our software runs on our own servers in Austria. Our website analytics are self-hosted, set no cookies and don't store IP addresses, so visitors don't need a consent banner. Our privacy policy names every provider we use.
Plan for the bad day
Assume that one day, something will go wrong. Then make sure it hurts as little as possible:
- Store passwords only in hashed form, so even you can't read them
- Encrypt sensitive data like access tokens for connected services
- Give each person on the team access only to what their job needs
- Write down who does what if there's a breach. Under the GDPR you usually have 72 hours to report it to the authority
How enless does it
We follow these practices, and we deliberately don't publish the details of how our systems are built. That's part of the protection too.
Explain it in plain words
A privacy policy nobody understands protects nobody. Write it like you'd explain it to a friend, keep it current, and tell users when something changes.
Trust is a feature. For a young company without a famous name, it may be the strongest one you have.
Start with one decision this week
Pick one: remove a form field you don't need, set an end date for one kind of data, or write down your list of providers. Small decisions now save a rebuild later.
Building something and want a sparring partner for decisions like these? Tell us where you're at. The first call is free.
This article is general guidance, not legal advice.