What privacy and security requirements should a PRD include?

What privacy and security requirements should a PRD include?

A PRD should describe how the product uses personal information and which actions each user is allowed to perform. These requirements shape the design early. They should be specific enough to guide implementation and testing without prescribing every technical mechanism.

Define necessary data and its lifecycle

List the information required for each workflow and explain why it is collected. A wedding app may need guest names and contact details, while some optional information may be unnecessary for the first release.

Specify who can see each category, which external services receive it, and what happens when a wedding or account is deleted. Define retention expectations and communicate any limits on deletion or recovery.

Use synthetic examples in AI prompts instead of real guest records.

Make access boundaries explicit

Describe permissions for organizers, collaborators, and invited guests, including access to individual weddings and events. Logging in should not automatically grant access to every record.

Require authorization checks for protected server operations and denial when access is not allowed. The OWASP authorization guidance recommends checking permissions on each request and limiting access to what is needed.

For invitation links, define intended recipients, expiry, revocation, and what information the link permits someone to view or change.

Connect safeguards to observable requirements

Specify useful failure behavior without exposing private details. Include requirements for protecting secrets, limiting sensitive information in logs, and handling suspicious or excessive requests appropriately.

Write checks that demonstrate the intended boundaries: a guest cannot read another guest’s response, and a collaborator removed from a wedding loses access.

AI can help identify missing scenarios, but the team must review the requirements against the application’s actual data and operating context.