What considerations should be made when using PHP variables in HTML links for passing data?

When using PHP variables in HTML links for passing data, it is important to properly sanitize and validate the data to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. One way to do this is by using PHP's `htmlspecialchars()` function to encode the data before outputting it in the HTML link.

<?php
// Assume $data is the variable containing the data to be passed
$sanitized_data = htmlspecialchars($data);
echo '<a href="example.php?data=' . $sanitized_data . '">Link</a>';
?>