• by Ray Schultz , June 28, 2019

Companies are throwing money at technology solutions to help them comply with new privacy laws, according to new research by IAPP and TrustArc.

Of the firms polled, 92% cite compliance as the main investment motivation. Demand for privacy legal updates and information management solutions has grown by 5% over last year.

The top purchase plans for the next 12 months are:

• Data mapping/flow — 24%
• Data discovery — 23%
• Assessment management — 20%
• DSAR/individual rights — 18%

These plans are consistent across companies regardless of size or whether they are in highly regulated industries.

The study also found that privacy teams provide the main decision input for nine out of 11 tool categories, including: 

• Program assessment — 37% 
• Legal updates — 36%
• Data mapping — 31%
• Individual rights — 31%

 In addition, privacy teams are the top budget sources for tools supporting:

• Privacy assessment — 51%
• Privacy legal updates — 45%
• Individual rights — 41%
• Data mapping — 35%
• Data subject consent — 34%

“As the number of privacy regulations grows, organizations must contend with the complexity of managing an increasingly fragmented privacy regulatory landscape,” states Chris Babel, CEO, TrustArc.

Babel adds that  organizational leaders are purchasing technology that can streamline the process of building global privacy compliance at scale, while turning more to privacy and data protection professionals for purchase input.”