On the heels of a handful of developments across the globe, including new data protection bills signed into law by both China and Saudi Arabia, experts speculate on how the data privacy legislative landscape will shape up in the coming year and beyond.

As 2021 draws to a close, India, Canada, Vietnam, South Korea and a smattering of countries around the world are reviewing proposed data privacy bills. Meanwhile, recent amendments to Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information will go into effect early next year and Australia is in the process of amending its 1988 privacy legislation. In the US, more than 25 state-level data privacy bills remain in limbo in various stages in committees.

The Drum surveyed a handful of experts about what’s next for data privacy legislation. Here’s what they said.

Arielle Garcia, chief privacy officer and senior vice-president of business operations and compliance, UM Worldwide: Many of the changes by big tech are attempts to preempt and evade regulatory action that would be most damaging to the platforms, and there is a balancing act between advancing privacy-enhancing changes without attracting greater competition scrutiny. To that end, we’re likely to continue to [see] more measured actions by the platforms as it grows increasingly critical to mitigate the perception that their changes result in anti-competitive effects. For example, Apple recently began prompting for opt-in consent to Apple’s use of data for ad personalization, more in alignment with its AppTrackingTransparency policies for app developers.

Read the full article on The Drum.