After years of accelerated digital transformation and fast data migration to the cloud, sensitive data is everywhere and more accessible than ever. While this is fantastic news for analytics programs in data-driven enterprises, it also increases risk. As businesses utilize and exchange more sensitive data, the risk of breaches and leaks increases. In 2022 alone, internet titans such as Apple, Meta, Twitter, and Samsung all disclosed security breaches involving sensitive customer information, and these concerns are only becoming worse. The worldwide privacy landscape is ever-changing. That puts businesses and privacy specialists in the difficult position of ensuring that their present systems and processes can stay up. This article discusses significant privacy trends to watch for in 2023, as well as suggestions for improving your privacy practices and preparing for the future.

1. DATA LOCALISATION: Data localization legislation is becoming the norm around the world. They are a collection of rules for storing and processing data in the same country where it was acquired. According to research, by 2024, 75% of the world's population will have privacy laws protecting personal data. While there are no data localization requirements in the UK, there are strict controls governing international data transfers. But, if your organization does worldwide transactions, you may be required to follow different data privacy rules in other nations. This is already evident in China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), which mandates enterprises collecting data on Chinese residents to store that data in China.

2. Artificial intelligence (AI) legislation is becoming more prevalent. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act will be introduced soon. This rule will divide AI applications into three risk categories and will apply to connected product producers. The three categories are as follows:

• Unacceptable risk – This includes software utilized by the government, such as social scoring applications. These applications will be prohibited.
• High risk – This category includes products such as CV assessment software. They will be extensively scrutinized.
• Low risk – These are all other apps that aren't directly addressed by the AI Act.

3. CROSS BORDER PRIVACY: While moving data from one nation to another, businesses must respect cross-border privacy guidelines. This means that international data transfers to third countries are only permitted in the UK and the EU under specified restrictions and safeguards. Binding Corporate Regulations (BCR) apply to multinational corporations and their internal data transfers, and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are contract clauses that have been pre-approved by the European Commission. According to the SCCs, EU enterprises must complete Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) to ensure that the data importer in the third country to which they are transferring data has adequate data privacy safeguards in place.

4. Businesses are likely to utilize less third-party cookies. Customers want more privacy (including clarity, choice, and authority over how their data is used), and the online ecosystem must adapt to satisfy this growing demand. Third-party cookies are being phased out as a result of this trend. Instead, by the end of 2023, businesses may be forced to rely on first-party data (information gathered directly from customers) for marketing purposes.

5. Controlling data privacy through a centralized user experience has grown in importance. Recent revisions to the GDPR in the United Kingdom have given consumers more control over their data. People have higher expectations for transparency regarding the use of their data. These issues have resulted in the necessity for a centralized privacy user experience (UX) to effectively manage data. Integrating web privacy elements such as notifications, cookies, consent management, and subject rights requests (SRR) processing into a single self-service portal simplifies things for key stakeholders, consumers, and workers. It also saves money and time.