‘Privacy enforcement really woke up’ in 2025

Last year was “the year when [privacy] bills came online,” says David Botero, a state data privacy fellow at the nonprofit IAPP. He joins the Priorities Podcast to reflect on a year that he also called “the year of amendments,” in which a handful of states changed their privacy laws in influential ways.  He says the year also brought new trends in how sensitive data is classified. The coming year, Botero says, will bring “an expanded right of access for automated decision making” linked to the right of consumers to appeal decisions made by such systems. Cobun Zwiefel-Keegan, IAPP’s managing director, says on the episode that it’s “an exciting time” for data-privacy policy. Last year, he says, was the “year that privacy enforcement really woke up in the states for these comprehensive consumer privacy laws.” And this year is continuing to bring change. On Jan. 1, comprehensive data privacy laws in three states — Indiana, Kentucky and Rhode Island — became enforceable, making for a total of 19 such active laws nationwide.

Top stories this week: 

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday signed a bill that established an innovation authority in the state Treasury Department and codifies the state’s Office of Innovation. New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill on Monday also announced that Dave Cole, the state’s chief innovation officer, will continue on in his role under her administration.

Matt Fraser, who’d served as New York’s chief technology officer since January 2022, under former Mayor Eric Adams, stepped down on Dec. 31. But the city’s technology priorities under newly inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani remain unclear. He named Ruby Choi, OTI’s deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives, as acting CTO, but has revealed little else about his plans for technology policy.

There were many big stories in state and local government IT last year, but five stood out from the rest. StateScoop’s Keely Quinlan chronicled them in a piece called “Five state tech stories that made 2025.”

New episodes of StateScoop’s Priorities Podcast are posted each Wednesday. For more of the latest news and trends across the state and local government technology community, subscribe to the Priorities Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,Soundcloud or Spotify.