Why SDETs Play a Critical Role in Privacy Testing In today’s regulatory environment, privacy is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s an essenti...
Why SDETs Play a Critical Role in Privacy Testing
In today’s regulatory environment, privacy is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s an essential aspect of building responsible and trustworthy software. With the establishment of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) and the enforcement of the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), companies are expected to ensure that user data is handled with the highest standards of care, particularly regarding data retention.
As an SDET, I’ve come to recognize the importance of incorporating privacy-focused testing into the software quality lifecycle. This goes beyond security checks — it's about proactively verifying that privacy policies are working as intended and that we're aligning our systems with user expectations and legal requirements.
Why Data Retention Testing Matters
Data retention refers to how long a company keeps personal data, and what processes are in place to delete or anonymize it once it's no longer needed. Under CPPA regulations, businesses must:
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Disclose how long data will be retained.
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Retain it only for as long as necessary for the stated purpose.
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Have systems in place to delete or de-identify personal data after the retention period.
This isn’t just about compliance — it’s also a matter of user trust and responsible data stewardship.
The SDET’s Responsibility in Privacy Testing
As SDETs, we sit at the intersection of quality assurance, automation, and risk mitigation. That gives us a unique opportunity to contribute meaningfully to privacy efforts in the following ways:
1. Automate Data Retention Tests
We can write automated tests to verify:
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That data deletion or anonymization processes trigger as expected after the retention period expires.
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Scheduled cleanup jobs behave correctly in different environments.
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Data older than allowed isn't accessible through any internal or external interfaces.
This can be done in test environments using mock user data and simulated timelines.
2. Validate Consent and Deletion Workflows
CPPA emphasizes users’ rights to delete their data upon request. As part of privacy testing, we can:
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Simulate end-to-end data deletion requests and validate that they are fully processed.
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Ensure deletion workflows cascade across all relevant systems — including logs, caches, and third-party services.
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Confirm that users receive appropriate confirmation when their request has been completed.
3. Build Privacy Checks into CI/CD Pipelines
Privacy shouldn’t be a separate, manual QA step. Instead, it should be baked into the delivery process:
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Add automated privacy tests to CI/CD workflows.
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Block deployments that don’t meet defined privacy requirements.
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Integrate testing results into dashboards to provide visibility to engineers, privacy teams, and leadership.
4. Partner Across Teams
Privacy testing isn’t a solo effort. It works best when done collaboratively. As SDETs, we can:
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Work with product and legal teams to understand privacy commitments.
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Align with data engineering teams to map out data flows and lifecycle stages.
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Share insights with leadership on how testing is helping us meet CPPA standards.
Staying Ahead of Compliance Requirements
CPPA enforcement will continue to evolve, and staying proactive is key. Regularly reviewing and updating privacy test coverage can help ensure:
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Continued compliance with emerging privacy regulations.
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Minimization of legal and reputational risks.
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A stronger, trust-centered relationship with users.
Final Thoughts
Testing privacy processes — especially around data retention — is a growing area of importance in quality engineering. As SDETs, we have the technical skillset and strategic vantage point to help enforce policies that go beyond functionality — they reflect user rights, ethical responsibility, and legal compliance.
Incorporating privacy into our testing frameworks is not only good engineering practice — it’s a reflection of our company’s commitment to doing right by our users.
About the Author
Alexey Vakulin is an SDET with experience in test automation, data compliance, and privacy-aware software engineering. Passionate about aligning technology with regulatory and ethical standards
