I want our APIs to be transparent about how they handle data and accountable for the promises we make around it. That means the consent and data processing agreements that govern an integration are actually provided and discoverable, and the retention we apply is defined and honored rather than assumed. When a partner or a regulator asks how we treat data, I want the answer to already be written down and enforced, not improvised in a meeting. This matters to the business because accountability is what earns and keeps the trust that lets integrations happen at all, and transparency is what turns a governance conversation into a short one. For the humans on both sides of the API, it means the terms are clear and the provenance of what we do with data can be traced.
APIs Are Transparent and Accountable
Policies
Consent and DPA Provided
Every API that touches personal data must provide a data processing agreement and a clear record of the consent under which that data is handled. I require that the DPA be available to consumers be...
Data Retention Defined
Require that every API declare a written retention policy stating how long each category of data is kept, why it is kept, and when it is destroyed. I expect this policy to be discoverable alongside...
Experiences
Trust
Establish trust with API consumers will evolve and build over time, and is something that can be lost in a very short period of time. Trust will depend on other experiences like quality and reliabi...
Governance
Governance is the experience of keeping API operations consistent and aligned as they scale across teams and time. It is the discipline that connects strategy at the top to the rules being enforced...
Provenance
Failing to understand your API history increases the risk of repeating past mistakes in future API development. Establishing provenance for each API helps track changes over time and ensures new ow...
