Legitimate Interest

Legitimate interest is one of six lawful bases for processing personal data under GDPR Article 6. It allows organizations to process data without explicit consent when they have a genuine and proportionate business purpose that is not overridden by the individual's fundamental rights.

To rely on legitimate interest, you must conduct a three-part test: (1) identify a legitimate purpose, (2) demonstrate necessity — the processing must be the least intrusive way to achieve it, and (3) perform a balancing test to ensure the individual's interests do not override yours.

Common legitimate interest use cases include: fraud prevention, network security, direct marketing to existing customers, and employee monitoring for legitimate business purposes. Sensitive data categories cannot rely on legitimate interest.