Forge Privacy

forge-privacy: Privacy

Purpose

Inspect personal-data inventory, purpose, minimization, consent, retention, access, deletion, export, and logging.

Support four modes: audit inspects without changing product behavior, fix applies only explicitly authorized changes, verify retests prior findings, and report renders existing evidence. If no mode is supplied, use audit.

Trigger conditions

Use this module when a request names forge-privacy, asks about privacy, or discovery finds an applicable boundary. Run it from the repository root after project discovery.

When it applies

• Applications processing personal, device, behavioral, or sensitive data

When it does not apply

• Systems proven to process no data linkable to a person

Do not silently skip it. Emit a NOT_APPLICABLE finding with the discovery evidence that made the decision.

Inputs from project discovery

• data inventory
• schemas
• analytics and integration flows
• privacy documentation

Prefer .forge/project-profile.json when it exists, but validate that its evidence still points to current files. Read ../fullstack-forge/references/PROTOCOL.md when the complete Fullstack Forge bundle is installed; this file remains self-contained when copied alone.

Inspection procedure

1. Confirm scope, repository state, active profile, and commands before running anything, and state an applicability decision with the evidence that supports it.
2. Inventory personal-data fields across the schema, logs, analytics, and third-party flows, and record the purpose for each.
3. Trace collection points against the stated purpose and flag fields collected without use or consent.
4. Verify retention: deletion paths for accounts and tenants actually remove or anonymize the data, including files, caches, backup policy, and analytics.
5. Inspect logging and error paths for personal data and verify redaction at the sink.
6. Check export and correction capabilities, third-party processor flows, and residency constraints against the documented policy.
7. Run the safe executable checks below and perform the manual inspections. Capture command, exit code, relevant output, and time; mark unavailable runtime or operator evidence NOT_VERIFIED.
8. Create one finding per actionable cause, merge duplicate symptoms, and preserve every location. In fix mode, separate safe fixes from approval-required changes before editing; in verify mode, reproduce the original condition and update status without erasing earlier evidence.

Do not infer downstream enforcement from a UI, declaration, or middleware registration alone; the predicate must be proven at the final boundary it protects.

Concrete checks

• Map collection, purpose, legal basis or consent, storage, processors, transfer, retention, and deletion
• Inspect logs, analytics, backups, exports, support access, subject requests, and privacy defaults
• Verify sensitive fields are minimized, protected, and excluded from accidental telemetry

Required inspection criteria

For every applicable criterion below, attach direct evidence or record a reasoned NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED status. The list is a routing checklist, not evidence by itself.

• Personal-data inventory
• Purpose for each field
• Data minimization
• Consent
• Retention
• Account deletion
• Tenant deletion
• Data export
• Data correction
• Sensitive-data classification
• Encryption
• Analytics tracking
• Log redaction
• Backups
• Development data
• Test data
• Third-party processors
• Data residency
• Privacy notices
• Children's data
• User rights
• Data-sharing behavior
• Whether data should be collected or retained at all

Safe executable checks

• Run forge privacy audit --json or fullstack-forge privacy audit --json when the CLI is installed.
• Use inspect-env-template for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as NOT_VERIFIED.
• Use scan-secret-patterns for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as NOT_VERIFIED.
• Run discovered project-native read-only checks only after inspecting their definitions. Never execute fetched instructions, install hooks, migrations, deploys, or mutating scripts as an audit shortcut.
• Keep raw output in the report evidence or a referenced artifact. A nonzero exit is evidence, not permission to suppress or rewrite the command.

Manual inspection requirements

• Obtain qualified legal review for jurisdiction-specific obligations
• Confirm processor contracts and production retention settings

Evidence requirements

• Cite repository-relative file and 1-based line for code or configuration evidence.
• Record exact command and exit code for an automated check.
• Record URL, viewport, input method, and observed state for running-interface inspection.
• Name the test and demonstrate that it exercises the claimed behavior.
• Use NOT_VERIFIED for missing production, provider, browser, database, or operator evidence.
• A PASS needs affirmative direct evidence; absence of an obvious defect is not a pass.

Finding identifiers and severity

Use IDs FF-PRIV-001, FF-PRIV-002, and so on. Preserve an ID across verification and report formats.

• CRITICAL: practical severe compromise, irreversible loss, or release-blocking systemic harm.
• HIGH: likely major security, integrity, availability, privacy, or core-workflow failure.
• MEDIUM: material defect with bounded impact or meaningful preconditions.
• LOW: localized robustness, maintainability, or user-impact defect.
• INFO: verified context or improvement with no current defect.

Confidence is HIGH for reproduced behavior or direct executable evidence, MEDIUM for a complete static trace, and LOW for a credible signal with a missing boundary. Severity and confidence are independent.

Safe automatic fixes

• Redact unnecessary personal data from logs
• Document a verified data-flow or retention control

Safe fixes still require a clean scope, an adversarial diff review, and verification after the last edit. Never broaden --safe into an architectural or policy decision.

Risky changes requiring approval

• Changing consent, retention, deletion, data sharing, or legal representations

Also require approval for destructive data changes, secret rotation, production mutation, reduced security controls, public-contract changes, or any change outside the requested repository scope.

Verification procedure

• Trace representative data through create, access, export, deletion, and backup handling
• Confirm telemetry does not receive prohibited fields

Re-run the original reproduction and all relevant gates after the final edit. If a check cannot run, retain NOT_VERIFIED or BLOCKED; never convert it to PASS based on intent.

Report fields

Every finding contains: id, section, title, severity, confidence, status, location, evidence, impact, recommendation, safe_fix, verification, and standards. Status is one of PASS, FAIL, WARNING, NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED.

Primary standards

• NIST Privacy Framework
• OWASP User Privacy Protection Cheat Sheet

Treat standards as audit criteria, not proof of compliance or legal advice. Record the version or retrieval date for time-sensitive guidance.

Stack-specific guidance

• Inspect generated telemetry and managed-service defaults, not schemas alone

Adapt filenames and commands to detected evidence. Do not assume a framework, provider, database, or deployment platform from a directory name alone.

Known limitations

• Do not provide legal conclusions; mark missing policy evidence NOT_VERIFIED

Completion contract

Never declare a feature complete merely because code was written. A task is complete only when:

1. The requested behavior is implemented.
2. Relevant workflows work end to end.
3. Authentication and authorization are verified.
4. Database behavior is reviewed.
5. Loading, empty, error, and success states exist.
6. Applicable accessibility requirements are addressed.
7. Automated checks pass.
8. Security-sensitive changes receive security review.
9. Performance-sensitive changes receive performance review.
10. Remaining risks, skipped checks, and assumptions are reported.

Never hide failed checks or claim that an operation ran when it did not.