Introduction
You probably have seen everyone using the buzzword – Data Privacy. It certainly adds depth and weight to a conversation, but in this day and age, it is not just a buzzword. You must now consider it as a fundamental issue when doing business. Privacy laws in 2025 for businesses around the globe are quickly catching up with the evolving digital strides, and business must quickly adapt or risk facing serious legal consequences.
Whether you are a small startup or a global enterprise, understanding and complying with various privacy regulations is no longer optional.
Key Privacy Laws Affecting Businesses in 2025
Following are some major privacy laws that you must keep in mind.
GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the global standard which is used as a foundation for all almost all of the privacy legislations in the world. New amendments are on the horizon that are bound to enhance various transparency requirements and, of course, enforce far stricter rules on third party data sharing.
New US State Privacy laws: Various states in US have introduced their own privacy laws and are trying to implement them in full swing. There are subtle differences amongst all of them when it comes to the scope or the enforcement processes, but overall they carry a very similar vibe. Currently there are 8 new privacy laws in 2025 for businesses that are about to come into effect. Here is the list. Unfortunately, it means that businesses spanning multiple states have a plethora of compliance challenges to address.
Track further upcoming legislations.
Impact of Privacy Laws on Businesses
Reading and understanding the legislation is the first step. How does it impact your business? What steps do you now need to take to be in compliance? Are there any day-to-day policy changes that are required? You need to answer these questions quite proactively.
Data Collection and Consent: On of the most common themes of privacy legislations throughout the entire world is the emphasis on “user consent”. Specially in 2025, all businesses must ensure that they provide clear options for data collection and usage to its customers. But this also has to be meaningful – just checking boxes and vague language surrounding opt-ins will no longer be accepted. Essentially, businesses have to ensure that their website cookies are updated and their opt-in forms are clear and meet the current legal standards. The idea is that the customer should be made aware of what their information will be used for and that they give clear consent for that usage.
Data Sharing and Third Party Vendors: Allmost all businesses have to use third-party services for either marketing or analytics or other areas that are either critical to the functioning of your businesses or provides some form of support. The issue is, as per the privacy legislations, YOU are responsible for any data that your vendors handle. Accountability is another key theme in privacy legislations – you cannot shift the blame onto third-party vendors. You have to ensure that your business took al the necessary steps, which generally includes due diligence of the vendor and a solid contract, often a Smart Contract, that governs your relationship with them.
If a third party provider suffers a data breach, failure to do the above can result in serious lawsuits against your business. Here is a checklist on how to avoid lawsuits for your business.
Another quick point is the AI generated data that a lot of businesses are using these days. You must be extremely careful while doing so and ensure that advanced protections are in place. You can learn more about that here.
What Steps Can You Take?
Following are some steps you can take to stay compliant with all the upcoming privacy legislations and amendments. But remember, it is not a one time fix. In order to avoid penalties, fines and lawsuits, you must constantly review your processes, policies and contracts to ensure compliance.
Privacy Management Program: You must allocate at least some resources in building a Privacy Management Program, which would include weekly or monthly audits, employee training on privacy and internal policies that ensure compliance with privacy regulations. Ideally you would want to appoint one person in your business as a Privacy Manager/ Privacy Officer who leads such a program and stays updated on upcoming legal changes.
Use Technology: In this age of AI, there are plenty of tools that you can use to ensure compliance. Privacy Impact Assessment softwares, automated data mapping solutions, and other such softwares and tools can help your business stay compliant and manage privacy issues in a much more efficient manner.
User Agreements and Privacy policies: One of the first things to do is having an updated external facing document such as a privacy policy that lays out how the data of all the users are processed and what it is used for. Of course, regular audits would be required to ensure it stays up to date.
For further information, Standford HAI discusses Privacy Challenges Faced in the AI Era. It’s a great read!
Incident Response Plans: it is a given that despite all the precautions you take, data breaches will happen. An Incident Response Plan helps minimize any damage that is done due to these breaches but also ensure that you are compliant with various privacy regulations that explicitly require breach notification.
Final Thoughts
As privacy and technology evolves, so will the laws surrounding them both. That means more laws on privacy, more amendments of already existing laws and harsher and stricter penalties for non-compliance. As a business, you must follow industry best practices and use the right tools to ensure that you are performing your duties and due diligence correctly. Staying compliant with ever changing privacy regulations is tedious and difficult, but it is still a better option that paying the hefty fines, suffering reputational damage or worse – facing a lawsuit.
We can help you build your privacy strategy today!