privacy-secrets-gate

Privacy-Secrets-Gate — Sensitive Data and Secret Handling

Register: DISCIPLINE Goal: prevent sensitive data, secrets, and regulated information from leaking through code, logs, prompts, telemetry, storage, exports, or external reviews. Core principle: data exposure is a release blocker unless explicitly classified, minimized, protected, and verified.

Announce: "Using privacy-secrets-gate to verify sensitive data and secret handling."

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Required for

Run this gate when any signal appears:

• complexity-gate data sensitivity score is 2 or 3;
• task touches PII, secrets, credentials, tokens, API keys, payment data, health/financial/legal data, or regulated data;
• code changes logging, telemetry, analytics, tracing, error reporting, prompt construction, AI/tool calls, exports, imports, backups, or webhooks;
• diff may be sent to an external reviewer/API;
• multi-tenant boundary, auth/session, permission, or data-isolation logic changes;
• C4 workflow or release-readiness mentions data impact.

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Step 1 — Classify data touched

Use the highest matching class:

PUBLIC        public docs, non-sensitive examples
INTERNAL      business logic, internal identifiers, non-public config
CONFIDENTIAL  customer/business confidential data, proprietary code paths
PII           direct or indirect personal data
SECRET        credentials, API keys, tokens, private keys, session secrets
PAYMENT       card/payment/billing data or payment processor payloads
REGULATED     health/financial/legal/compliance-governed data

If unsure, classify upward and record the uncertainty as T4/ASSUMED until verified.

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Step 2 — Map data flow

For every sensitive class found, identify:

Input source:
Storage location:
Logs/traces/error reporting:
Telemetry/analytics:
Prompt/tool/external API path:
Export/import/backups:
Retention/deletion path:
Access control boundary:
Tenant/user isolation boundary:

Any unknown path in C3/C4 is a blocker or explicit residual risk.