Introducing Product Privacy Management: From Policy to Proof

April 3, 2025

mins read

Ben Werner

Product Marketing Lead

It’s time to shift from trust-based to evidence-based privacy.

Since GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) came on the scene in 2016 and 2018 respectively, companies in Europe and the US have invested considerable resources to become compliant. Companies have added new privacy teams, processes, and tools to disclose privacy practices, collect consent, and manage data, and what has been the result?

In 2024, Privado AI scanned the top 100 websites in the US and Europe and found 75% were not privacy compliant because they shared personal data without proper consent. The situation is similar with mobile apps. Why is that?

Trust-based privacy breaks at scale

Privacy tools and processes for software products like websites and apps have traditionally relied on trust. Privacy teams have had to trust that consent management platforms were properly configured for websites to block third-party cookies when users opt out. Privacy teams have to trust that a privacy impact assessment for a new app feature is accurately filled out by product stakeholders. When most companies today are managing massive amounts of personal data and technology is rapidly evolving, trust has proven to break at scale, and regulators have begun to notice.

In Europe, annual GDPR fines have increased 78% on average each year between 2020-2024, growing from $187M in 2020 to $1.2B in 2024. In the US, the annual volume of fines has increased 65% on average each year over the same time period.

These fine rates will only continue to increase as regulators now want evidence of compliance. In 2025, the UK’s ICO, France’s CNIL, and California’s Attorney General will all launch privacy enforcement campaigns on websites and mobile apps to counter widespread personal data sharing without proper consent.

Shift from trust to evidence

Now that privacy regulation, enforcement, and consumer expectations have increased globally, we need evidence-based privacy solutions. More specifically, we need:

Traceable personal data inventories and flows to third parties
Objective compliance assessments not based on human input
Real-time risk monitoring for user-facing and backend software products

How can we get this level of evidence? By monitoring privacy risk at the source: software. Software is the primary source of privacy risk because it controls how personal data is collected, used, shared, and stored. By monitoring how user-facing and backend software products process personal data, companies can obtain the necessary evidence to create complete data maps, proactively remediate privacy risks, and generate accurate compliance reporting. We call this practice product privacy management.

What is product privacy management?

Product privacy management is the practice of monitoring software products to mitigate privacy risk. Because software products control how data is processed in today’s tech-driven world, product privacy management can enable complete data visibility and continuous privacy governance at scale across an organization.

Complete product privacy management means privacy teams can govern personal data in real-time across websites, mobile apps, connected TV apps, backend software, and third-party applications. This level of data visibility provides the evidence for privacy teams to verify compliance and engineering teams to proactively remediate privacy risks.

Product privacy management is valuable for any B2C or B2B company processing large amounts of personal data on their websites, mobile apps, or other software products. Companies running digital ads in financial or health related industries are typically most at risk of privacy lawsuits, but companies in any industry processing personal data without proper consent are still at risk.

The current approaches to product privacy management

Code scanning analyzes the code running any user-facing or backend software product to mitigate privacy risk during software development and after products are live
Live product scanning provides additional risk mitigation for user-facing products such as websites and mobile apps. By simulating user behavior, live product scanning can monitor data flows based on user consent actions and identify additional data flows not specified in the code.
Manual assessments. Because most privacy solutions today don’t monitor software products, most companies rely on manual privacy risk assessments.

Product privacy management enables complete risk mitigation at scale

Best-in-class product privacy management solutions that scan code and live products enable true Privacy-by-Design and compliance at scale by integrating evidence-based privacy controls across the product development lifecycle from planning through development and maintenance.

With best-in-class product privacy management, privacy teams can eliminate the manual assessments that were missing most privacy risks and slowing down the business. By proactively mitigating privacy risk, product privacy management can also turn privacy teams into business-enablers instead of blockers.

Traditional privacy management focuses on privacy operations, not risk

Traditional privacy management focuses on the operations needed for privacy compliance, but it does not focus on mitigating privacy risk in software products. Privacy regulations in Europe, US, and around the world require companies to implement consent banners, publish privacy policies, offer data subject access requests (DSAR), and report data breaches.

Today’s privacy management solutions are designed primarily to meet those operational privacy needs, and privacy teams must trust that these solutions are used in a compliant manner. These technology vendors often specialize in consent management and DSAR automation solutions. Consent management platforms (CMPs) represent the key difference between traditional privacy management and product privacy management. CMPs are critical for managing consent banners and limiting data processing across websites and mobile apps, but CMPs do not monitor websites and mobile apps to verify whether the CMP and third parties have been implemented properly to eliminate privacy risk.

Data discovery solutions are designed for privacy operations and data governance

Traditional privacy management also overlaps with data governance. To execute privacy operations such as DSARs and reporting, organizations need to document what data they have and where it is stored. Traditional privacy management vendors offer data discovery solutions that inventory data in storage that primarily support privacy operations and data governance. Once these vendors identify personal data in storage by scanning databases and some third-party tools, the DSAR automation solutions offered by the same vendors can be set up to better meet data deletion requests from users. Data discovery solutions also support data access management and data retention needs.

Traditional privacy solutions rely on trust-based, manual assessments to complete data maps and mitigate risk

What data discovery and data governance solutions do not adequately address is privacy risk. Inventorying data in storage does not identify what personal data is shared without proper consent or who it is shared with. Inventorying data in storage does not identify where personal data is collected or how it is being used. The vast majority of privacy risk comes from how software products like websites and apps collect, use, and share personal data, and yet, traditional privacy management vendors offer minimal support to address these risks.

To complete data maps and privacy risk assessments, most privacy teams today send out questionnaires and conduct interviews. Traditional privacy management vendors offer tools to support this manual data gathering process such as digitized assessment forms and templates, but these manual tools have proved to be ineffective and inefficient.

Product privacy management focuses on monitoring software products to mitigate privacy risk with evidence across an organization. Traditional privacy management focuses on executing privacy operations but relies on trust-based, manual processes to monitor and remediate privacy risk.

Key advantages of product privacy management

Complete data mapping coverage: Privacy teams can autogenerate data maps for all websites, apps, backend software, and third parties showing how all personal data elements are collected, used, shared, and stored. No questionnaires needed.
Real-time data flow visibility: Data maps, RoPAs, PIAs, and DPIAs will always stay up-to-date as software products are continuously scanned for data flow changes.
Continuous and comprehensive privacy risk governance: Proactively detect all potential violations to privacy policies and applicable regulations across websites, apps, backend software, and third parties. Flag risks in live products and during development. Prevent data sharing without consent, sensitive data processing, and cross-border transfers.
Preserves data security: No personal data is ever scanned or accessed; only live software products and code are scanned. Code is also never stored or shared and is never used to train AI models.
Rapid time to value: Immediately identify and remediate privacy risks on websites and mobile apps without any technical implementation. Build complete org-wide data maps in a matter of weeks, not months

Key Takeaways

Privacy teams need evidence-based solutions: Trust-based privacy controls such as manual privacy assessments, data discovery, consent management platforms have proven to break at scale. Without privacy solutions that continually verify compliance with evidence, companies risk serious privacy violations across their websites, apps, and backend software.
Regulators are asking for more evidence and issuing more fines: Privacy enforcement actions have increased exponentially since 2020, and the trend is likely to continue as regulators increase investigations. In 2025, the UK’s ICO, France’s CNIL, and California’s Attorney General will all launch privacy enforcement campaigns on websites and mobile apps to counter widespread personal data sharing without proper consent.
Product privacy management enables evidence-based privacy at scale: Software products such as websites, apps, and backend software are the primary source of privacy risk because they control data flows. By continuously monitoring how live products and products in development process personal data, product privacy management can continually provide the evidence to mitigate privacy risk across an organization.