Data Privacy Trends in 2025

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With the fast development of generative AI systems, new state-level data privacy laws in the US, and huge fines for privacy issues in Europe in 2024, the field of data privacy will continue to evolve enormously in 2025. The changing privacy landscape will continue to change everyone: from social media users to businesses, app developers, privacy professionals, and regulators.

The pace of change in data privacy is accelerating. Staying ahead of these trends could help you to navigate compliance and seize new strategic opportunities.

Here are the top 10 data privacy trends and tendencies you need to understand in 2025 and beyond.

1. More Laws in the US

More US states have enacted comprehensive data privacy laws, expanding consumer rights and setting new obligations for businesses. In 2024, the following data privacy laws came into force:

  • Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA). The TDPSA came into effect on July 1, 2024. It grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, appeal, and opt out of the sale of their personal data and targeted advertising. The TDPSA is a business-friendly privacy law, like the state privacy laws in Utah, Virginia, and Iowa. The law is enforced by the Texas Attorney General, with a 30-day cure period for violations. 
  • Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR). Effective July 1, 2024, the FDBR targets big tech companies meeting certain revenue and operational thresholds. The law focuses on child protection, social media, and technology regulation. It also grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, and opt out of the sale of their personal data and targeted advertising. The FDBR is enforced by the Florida Attorney General, with a 45-day cure period for violations. 
  • Oregon Consumer Privacy Act (OCPA). The OCPA also came into effect on July 1, 2024. It grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, appeal, and opt out of the sale of their personal data, targeted advertising, and certain profiling. It includes requirements for data minimization and data protection assessments. The law is enforced by the Oregon Attorney General, with a 30-day cure period for violations available until January 1, 2026.
  • Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA). The MCDPA became effective on October 1, 2024. Like other laws, it grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, appeal, and opt out of the sale of their personal data and targeted advertising. The law is enforced by the Montana Attorney General, who must give a 60-day notice to the businesses to cure the violation until April 1, 2026. 

In 2025, the following data privacy laws will come into force:

  • Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act (DPDPA). Effective January 1, 2025. The DPDPA is one of the more consumer-friendly state-level data privacy laws. It also grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, appeal, and opt out of the sale of their personal data and targeted advertising. It also requires controllers to recognize the universal opt-out signal. The law is enforced by the Delaware Attorney General, with a 60-day cure period for violations until December 31, 2025.
  • Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act (ICDPA). Effective January 1, 2025. The ICDPA is a business-friendly privacy law, like the state privacy laws in Utah, Virginia, and Texas. Different from other state-level privacy laws, the ICDPA does not grant consumers the right to correction, the right to opt out of automated decision-making, and the right to opt out of profiling. The Iowa Attorney General has the exclusive authority to enforce the ICDPA with a 90-day cure period for violations. 
  • New Hampshire Data Privacy Law (NHDPL). Effective January 1, 2025. Like other data privacy laws, the NHDPL grants consumers the right to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of their data, and opt out of the sale of their personal data. The law is enforced by the New Hampshire Attorney General.
  • New Jersey Data Privacy Act (NJDPA). Effective January 15, 2025. It also gives users the right to access, correct, or delete their data and to opt out of certain processing activities. The law is enforced by the New Jersey Attorney General.
  • Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA). Effective July 1, 2025. It is quite a business-friendly law. However, with some important privacy protections for consumers, it is less consumer-friendly than the CCPA, CPRA, or the CPA. The law is enforced by the Tennessee Attorney General, with a 60-day cure period for violations. 
  • Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA). Effective October 1, 2025. Like other data privacy laws, the MODPA also gives users the right to access, correct, or delete their data and to opt out of certain processing activities, and is enforced by the Attorney General of the state.

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2. Europe: The Focus on AI Regulation and Investigations

It is unlikely to see any significant changes to existing privacy laws in Europe in 2025. However, businesses could not stay calm for the following reasons:

  • The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act). The EU AI Act became effective on August 1, 2024. It adopts a risk-based approach, categorizing AI applications into different risk levels— minimal, limited, high, and unacceptable, and sets corresponding obligations for each category. Certain provisions of the Act like a private right of action will start to apply from February 2, 2025. Authorities including the EU AI Office and the national data protection authorities will start enforcing requirements on general-purpose AI systems in August 2025. 
  • AI Investigations in the EU. Data protection authorities have multiple open investigations of generative AI apps (mostly OpenAI). First decisions will come, which would set a precedent for the following decisions. Most probably, the first decisions will come against the providers of generative AI models but later against businesses using customer and employee data to feed generative AI models.
  • The ePrivacy Directive will continue to stall. The ePrivacy Directive (the EU Cookie Law) is the only legislation currently undergoing an update. The European Parliament, Commission, and Council didn’t find an agreement on the final draft of the legislation so far, and it is expected that the ePrivacy Directive will continue to stall in 2025. Most probably this is related to the failure to offer an acceptable alternative to the management of Third-Party Cookies. On July 22, 2024, Google dropped plans to remove cookies from its browser Chrome, after failing to find alternatives to Third-Party Cookies. 

3. The Asia–Pacific Region: Enforcing New Frameworks

  • Australia and Japan will strengthen data privacy laws. In 2025, updates to the Australia Privacy Act reforms will introduce stricter rules for automated decision-making, stronger penalties for violations, and new protections for children’s data.
    In Japan, updates to the Act on the Protection of Personal Information will introduce new rules for biometric data, new protections for children’s data, and a stricter opt-out mechanism. The privacy law’s enforcement mechanisms will also increase.
  • Full enforcement of India’s and Vietnam’s data privacy laws. In Indonesia, the Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) already came into effect on October 17, 2024. In India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, effective August 2023, will reach full enforcement by 2025. Vietnam’s Personal Data Protection Decree, effective July 2023, will also become fully effective in 2025.
  • AI regulations will expand. Even if EU leads the way for AI regulation, the Asia–Pacific countries are also updating regulations to reflect AI challenges. In Thailand, new provisions will be introduced in Personal Data Protection Act in 2025 to regulate the use of AI. These provisions will regulate that AI systems are transparent, accountable, and protect user privacy. In China, updates to Personal Information Protection Law will take effect on January 1, 2025. They include specific guidelines for AI technologies with respect to user privacy.

4. AI and Data Privacy

  • New provisions and updates. As mentioned above, in 2025 many countries from Europe to Thailand and China, will introduce new provisions and updates for existing AI regulations. They will include stricter requirements for transparency and accountability in AI systems processing personal data.
  • AI management will take a central role in businesses. In 2025, many new provisions regulating AI will be enacted. As AI is used in many applications and becomes increasingly advanced, businesses need to take special care to protect personal data concerning AI use or development. If the safeguard measures will not be adequate, companies will face an increased risk of litigation and regulatory investigations. So, make sure you have the right AI and personal data management procedures in place. Get ready and make sure you have the right staffing, training programs, resources, and third-party services like Consent Management Platforms (CMP).
  • Synthetic data. Another trend in 2025 to watch is the use of synthetic data as a privacy-preserving alternative for AI system training.

5. Increased Data Security Measures

Since Cyber threats continue to evolve and data privacy laws are becoming stricter, data security measures will become mandatory. Businesses will be required to implement reasonable security measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access and to prevent data breaches.

Businesses will be expected to:

  • Adopt zero-trust security models where continuous verification of users and devices should be implemented to protect sensitive data.
  • Use only encrypted data protocols for data transfers.
  • Securely store sensitive data.
  • Conduct risk assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities.
  • Regularly evaluate and update their cybersecurity protocols.

6. Increased Consumer Awareness

People are becoming increasingly worried about their data privacy on social networks. The Pew Research Center’s survey shows that 76% of Americans do not trust social media and fear that social media companies will sell their personal data without their consent. 

People also don’t trust AI: 70% of Americans have little to no trust in companies to make responsible decisions about how they use it in their products.

Even if privacy laws are quite strict now, leading to huge penalties for violations, especially in the EU, people want the regulations to be even stricter. The same Pew Research Center’s survey shows that 72% of Americans would like more data privacy regulation than there is now.

Keeping all these facts in mind, in 2025 people will demand more control and transparency over their data. Consent management platforms like CookieScript can help companies to control user data privacy by informing them about the data collection and management practices and collecting user consent.

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Individuals may get the possibilities to monetize their data directly, with social media platforms offering incentives for data sharing.

7. Technological Innovations

  • Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs). In 2025, we expect to see increased and widespread adoption of PETs such as differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and secure multi-party computation.
    For example, data with homomorphic encryption allows users to perform computations on encrypted data without decrypting it. FHE software is already known but it is not widely used because it’s computationally intensive and up to 1,000 times slower than other types of data processing. But that is going to change in 2025.
    Another privacy-enhancing technology that has become popular lately is the usage of data clean rooms. Data clean rooms are virtual spaces that provide a secure way for advertisers and online media companies to share data. This allows advertisers and marketers to see the impact of their campaigns across platforms and publishers.
  • Decentralized identity solutions. To solve the data privacy concerns, companies will start using blockchain or similar technologies for user-controlled digital identities.
  • These innovations will cover everything from data collection, processing, analysis, and sharing.

8. Sector-Specific Regulations

In 2025, we will see increased focus on industry-specific rules, especially in healthcare, finance, and education, to protect sensitive data in these sectors.

In the US, information provided to insurers and medical professionals is strictly safeguarded by HIPPA. In the EU such information is covered by the GDPR. However, nearly 75% of individuals are concerned about their medical data privacy.  These fears have grounds: in 2023 alone, more than 540 organizations reported data breaches to the HHS Office, and those breaches impacted 112 million individuals.

The laws require users to grant opt-in user consent for data collection. Individuals should also have a way to revoke their permission. The tendencies towards stricter health data regulations will continue in 2025 as well.

9. Automation in Privacy Management

  • AI-driven compliance tools. In 2025, businesses will start using more widely automated tools to monitor compliance, manage user consents, and handle data subject access requests.
  • Real-time monitoring. Businesses will also implement advanced tools for detecting and mitigating privacy risks in real time.

10. Shift in Business Models

Companies will move away from ad-centric models reliant on personal data toward alternative revenue strategies.

Privacy will become another field of competition, with organizations investing in privacy-related practices as part of their brand value.

How to Comply with Privacy Laws in 2025?

Businesses need to navigate these trends effectively while exploiting innovations. Get ready for 2025 now. Use automation tools that allow to accelerate privacy-related business practices and stay compliant with evolving privacy laws.

CookieScript CMP is one of the best CMPs, ensuring 100% compliance with existing and emerging privacy laws. It offers a full compliance solution for your website or app with the following privacy laws:

CookieScript CMP has geo-targeting functionality, so you can present different cookie banners based on the location of your customers.

It supports Google Consent Mode v2, has many integrations, and has all functionalities you would need in one place. In 2024, CookieScript CMP was ranked by users as the best CMP on a peer-review site G2.

Register with CookieScript today.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What new data privacy laws are expected in 2025?

In 2025, the following four US state-level data privacy laws will come into force: Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act (DPDPA), effective January 1, 2025; Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act (ICDPA), effective January 1, 2025; New Hampshire Data Privacy Law (NHDPL), effective January 1, 2025; New Jersey Data Privacy Act (NJDPA), effective January 15, 2025; Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA), effective July 1, 2025; and Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA), effective October 1, 2025. Use CookieScript CMP to comply with these coming privacy laws.

What data privacy laws came into force in 2024?

In 2024, the following data privacy laws came into force: Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR), Oregon Consumer Privacy Act (OCPA), and Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA). Use CookieScript CMP to comply with these and other privacy laws.

What data privacy trends are expected in 2025 related to AI?

First, in 2025 many countries from Europe to Thailand and China, will introduce new provisions and updates for existing AI regulations, presenting stricter requirements for transparency and accountability in AI systems. Second, AI management will take a central role in businesses. Third, we are expecting to see the use of synthetic data as a privacy-preserving alternative for AI system training.

What changes in privacy laws are expected in Europe in 2025?

In Europe, the focus will be on AI regulation and investigations. Certain provisions of the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act will start to apply from February 2, 2025, and the national data protection authorities will start enforcing requirements on general-purpose AI systems in August 2025. Data protection authorities have multiple open investigations of generative AI apps. The first decisions will come in 2025. CookieScript CMP can help you to comply with the privacy laws.