Privacy by design and privacy by default are often treated as abstract principles, but they are concrete compliance requirements with real architectural consequences.

Formally codified in Article 25 of the GDPR, these concepts require organizations to embed privacy into system architecture and make privacy-preserving behavior the default state, not an optional configuration.

This episode explains why retrofitting privacy after systems are built is expensive, fragile, and often illegitimate from a compliance perspective and why durable compliance starts with intentional design, minimal data use, and privacy as the path of least resistance.