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The Boltive team recently returned from the 2025 Privacy + Security Forum Spring Academy, where we had the opportunity to lead a featured panel, connect with peers and take part in some of the most important conversations happening in privacy, security and data governance.
Overall, this year’s event reflected a continually maturing industry. Teams are getting more cross-functional. Tools are evolving. Priorities are shifting. And of course, there’s still plenty of uncertainty around enforcement and regulation.
Here are six key takeaways from our two days together in the nation’s capital:
It’s no surprise, AI was a dominant topic of discussion at this year’s forum. But it wasn’t just about the tools, these conversations centered on an increasingly urgent need for clear policies and procedures around the adoption and ongoing monitoring of AI tools.
Panelists and attendees spent a significant amount of time at the summit sharing strategies and tactics around this topic—not only for vetting AI tools for safety, trust and compliance before rollout, but for continued monitoring after deployment.
We named our panel discussion after this “convergence” because we believe it is an exciting and important industry development. This opinion certainly proved correct in our conversations throughout the event, where we saw the ongoing convergence of privacy and security take shape in real and visible ways.
Titles are changing. Teams are blending. Some are starting to question whether these distinctions still matter at all. Throughout these conversations, we discussed how Boltive’s platform is built to serve as the connective tissue between functions, offering insights and visibility everyone can rely on.
While there is some uncertainty around federal enforcement priorities coming out of the new administration’s first 100 days, there was broad consensus that state-level enforcement continues to gain both strength and sophistication. One standout example: the recently announced Consortium of Privacy Regulators, that is now coordinating on joint investigations.
Separately, the DOJ’s new Cross-Border Data Rule sparked concern. The rule frames compliance failure as a national security matter, with enforcement beginning in July. This is a front burner issue for companies placing tags or pixels on their websites or buying or selling ads online.
The data transfers involved are categorized by the DOJ as data brokerage and carry specific compliance requirements if “covered persons” are involved. Yet many attendees expressed uncertainty about how to operationalize these requirements within this narrow window of time. There’s more confusion than clarity right now—but it’s clear the stakes are rising quickly, and we definitely have our eye on this topic.
Despite years of scrutiny, cookies continue to create major compliance challenges. After all these years, multiple speakers shared findings showing that most companies still don’t fully understand what’s activating on their websites, especially when users opt-out.
Manual forensic work is one approach to surfacing errors, but software automation was described as faster and more consistent. Either way, visibility and verification, especially post-implementation, are becoming baseline expectations, as is the expectation that companies are proactively auditing for these issues.
A recurring theme at this year’s forum was the disconnect between the industry’s stated commitment to consumer privacy and the actual outcomes. Many practitioners begin with good intentions but fall victim to murky execution and misaligned results.
As several sessions pointed out, compliance can’t just be about checking boxes. Privacy efforts must truly center the consumer—not just in theory, but also in implementation. One thing’s for sure; regulators are watching, and there is a growing shift away from leniency for "good faith efforts" toward enforcement that focuses on outcomes.
As we fully expected, privacy legal teams are evolving quickly in the face of more work, and rapidly evolving regulations. Many are now building deep technical fluency, while others are becoming more tool-centric in how they evaluate and manage compliance.
Rather than relying solely on consultants, more legal teams are turning directly to platforms like Boltive that can help them understand risk and make decisions quickly with clarity and confidence.
These six takeaways offer a snapshot of where the privacy and security landscape is likely headed. And we’re proud to be building tools built to help privacy and security teams meet this future head on.
AI Adoption, Evolving Enforcement & the Convergence of Privacy & Security: 6 Big Takeaways from the 2025 PSF Spring Academy
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