'Consent is King' in 2025, Privacy Experts Say

“Our privacy world is feeling a little crazy right now,” said Ashley Fowler, senior privacy program manager at Osano. “As privacy professionals, I would say we're pretty used to herding cats and dealing with a variety of different complexifiers coming our way daily, but lately it feels like a lot more.”

Looking at trends since the beginning of the year, she said that consent is going to be a big area of focus for regulators. “Without a doubt, there will be a lot of eyes on consent needed for targeted advertising and third-party tracking pixels,” said Fowler. “Consent is king in 2025. The single most important thing that we can do beyond just ensuring that you're compliant is to clearly demonstrate that compliance on your website and your mobile apps, so consumers and regulators alike can see that you are taking consent and transparency seriously.”

California and Texas have led state enforcement so far, said Fowler. Texas has already filed several lawsuits in 2025, including against Allstate (see 2501130047), where a lack of transparency and consent was at the center of the complaint.

Olivia Ward, technology and data privacy lawyer at Simmons and Simmons, said cookies are currently a hot area in Europe. A privacy activist group “has registered a large number of cookie-related complaints with EU data privacy authorities regarding cookie data and its transmission to China,” she said. “These cases could have wider implications in relation to international transfers and cookie data collection, going beyond what the specific companies are doing and extending beyond just rules and processes applicable to transfers of data to China.”

Europe had “a significant year in data privacy enforcement, with 1.2 billion euros in fines issued across Europe in 2024,” said Ward. While that was a decrease from the previous year, she said, there is still an overall upward trend in enforcement actions in Europe as well as the U.S.

Fowler expects an uptick in global focus on individual rights, said Fowler, predicting an increase in subject rights regulation. “If there's one constant in every law we're seeing," it's that "data subjects have rights," she said. "And while those rights may have some nuances from law to law, they're there, and regulators are watching.”

As a result, it's “now more than ever important to build trust with consumers and regulators alike,” Fowler said. “We know that consumers are becoming increasingly aware, year over year, that their data is being compromised more regularly, and we have statistics showing that consumers are choosing companies that they trust.”