Row-Level Security (RLS) in pipelines stops that. It enforces rules at the level of a single row in a table or stream. Only the right user can see the right data. Everyone else sees nothing, or only what the policy allows. This is not optional in production systems.
Pipelines move data through many stages: ingestion, transformation, storage, output. Without RLS, every stage is a risk. Sensitive fields might slip into analytics feeds. Internal metrics might show up in customer dashboards. Once data is out, you cannot take it back.
RLS ties access control to the pipeline itself. Policies run where the data flows, not just where it rests. SQL-based systems like Postgres let you define RLS rules directly on tables. Modern stream processors can add filters that match RLS semantics. Cloud data warehouses now include row filters as first-class features.