# Purpose Limitation
**Domain:** Deep Time / Data Protection / Institutional Design
**Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry
**Maturity:** Developed
**Evidence / Concept Status:** Established data-protection principle
## Definition
**Purpose Limitation** is the requirement that personal data be collected and processed for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not casually repurposed incompatibly.
## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity
It is the legal counterforce to function creep and therefore a critical deep-time safeguard.
## Existing Architecture / Evidence
The UK ICO explicitly links purpose specification to avoiding function creep and preserving accountability and user understanding.
## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis
A continuity system must specify whether data is for archive, training, reconstruction, authentication, memorialization, or active execution.
## Evidentiary Boundary
Purpose limitation can constrain conversion but may itself need lawful amendment when the person expressly elects a new purpose.
## Related Ontology
[[wiki/Function Creep|Function Creep]] · [[wiki/Continuity Election|Continuity Election]] · [[wiki/Human Digital Remains|Human Digital Remains]] · [[wiki/Deep-Time Institutional Conversion|Deep-Time Institutional Conversion]]
## Sources / Primary Anchors
- https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-protection-principles/a-guide-to-the-data-protection-principles/purpose-limitation
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## Canonical Branch
[[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]]
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