Part 2: State Privacy Enforcement and Litigation in 2025: What Every Business Needs to Know

In part one of this series, we explored the most significant 2025 state privacy enforcement actions and what they reveal about regulators’ priorities. If you missed it, catch up on the trends, violations, and lessons every business needs to know. 

Part two goes beyond the headlines: we unpack how privacy enforcement is expanding, highlight emerging risks for organizations of all sizes, and provide concrete steps to strengthen your privacy program. From state AG investigations to class-action litigation, this blog delivers practical, actionable insights to help privacy teams anticipate regulatory pressure, mitigate risk, and build a privacy program that not only safeguards your business but also earns lasting customer trust. 

Privacy Enforcement Is Expanding 

Enforcement Isn’t Just for Big Tech — It’s Everyone’s Challenge

A common misconception is that privacy enforcement primarily targets large tech giants. However, recent state enforcement actions reveal a far broader focus. Regulators are scrutinizing businesses across diverse industries from grocery stores and streaming services to car manufacturers and game developers. California’s enforcement sweeps, for example, have included companies operating loyalty programs and niche streaming platforms, many of which never anticipated being caught up in statewide privacy crackdowns.

This demonstrates that if your business collects, processes, or shares personal data, regardless of size or industry, you are on the enforcement radar. Small and midsize businesses can no longer assume they are too small to be targeted. Privacy compliance is a universal requirement.

Public–Private Partnerships Are Driving Litigation

A quiet but significant shift is underway in consumer protection enforcement: state regulators are increasingly teaming up with private law firms to pursue headline-grabbing privacy cases. These firms often develop the case theories, conduct investigations, and even appear on complaints, giving states extra firepower against well-resourced defendants.

Recent examples include:

• Texas v. Meta (2022): $1.4 billion biometric privacy settlement, with Keller Postman representing the state.
• Michigan v. Roku (2025): COPPA suit involving children’s data, with Korein Tillery named in the complaint.

When private firms are behind enforcement, cases tend to be filed earlier, publicly, and with a stronger focus on maximizing financial recovery. For businesses, this means heightened litigation risk, even in states without strong privacy laws or large regulatory teams.

Cure Periods Are Disappearing — The “Fix It First” Window Is Closing

Historically, many state privacy laws allowed businesses a “cure period”, a window of time to address and correct violations before facing penalties. This grace period offered some protection for organizations that were proactive in remedying compliance issues.

That landscape is changing. California’s cure period has expired, and other states are following suit. Regulators are becoming less tolerant of noncompliance, opting to move directly to enforcement without extended warnings. Small businesses, in particular, must recognize that regulatory patience is fading. Waiting to fix problems only after a complaint or investigation can lead to costly legal consequences.

Coordinated Enforcement: The Consortium of Privacy Regulators

Earlier this year, a bipartisan consortium of state attorneys general formed a collaborative network to coordinate privacy enforcement efforts. This means that privacy issues uncovered by regulators in one state can quickly become the focus of multiple states, amplifying legal and logistical burdens.

For businesses, this coordinated enforcement approach raises the stakes significantly. A privacy misstep in one jurisdiction could trigger simultaneous inquiries from multiple states, creating complex compliance demands and increasing financial risk. Small businesses with limited resources need to be especially vigilant to avoid becoming overwhelmed by multi-state investigations.

The Mid-Market Privacy Risk Factor

Privacy enforcement isn’t just targeting major enterprises, midsize businesses are increasingly subject to scrutiny. These organizations are large enough to fall under the scope of privacy laws, but often don’t have the robust compliance infrastructure of global corporations. 

Enforcement priorities such as cookie banners, privacy notices, vendor contracts, and location data are hitting mid-market companies particularly hard because midsize companies often rely on budget-friendly consent management tools, but these solutions alone don’t guarantee compliance. Without the internal resources or vendor partnership to verify that the tool is implemented correctly, cookie banners may fail, opt-out requests can go unprocessed, and consumer rights may not be honored. Regulators are paying close attention to these gaps. Choosing the right privacy partner ensures that your tools are not only deployed but actively tested and aligned with regulatory expectations.

The Overlooked Risk Factors Regulators Won’t Ignore

• Historical Compliance Matters: Enforcement isn’t just about today. California enforcement reaches back up to five years. That means any gaps dating to 2020 can still trigger action in 2025. The CPPA’s first judicial petition against Tractor Supply, which sought records as far back as 2020, shows how historical compliance failures remain fair game for regulators today.
• No Industry Is Exempt: From loyalty programs and streaming services to ticketing platforms and healthcare, regulatory sweeps are broad and inclusive. Companies handling sensitive personal data like health, location, or financial information are likely to face the highest risk of enforcement.
• Vendor Oversight Is Non-Negotiable: Privacy risk extends beyond your own operations. Website operators and businesses using embedded technology (analytics, ad tech, customer tracking, etc.) must also account for the practices of their third-party providers. Current CCPA and CIPA-related class actions increasingly target these vendors, making vendor due diligence and ongoing oversight essential.

Key Steps to Strengthen Your Privacy Compliance

With enforcement intensifying, a proactive and comprehensive privacy program is essential. Consider these key steps to safeguard your business:

• Map and Understand Your Data: Know exactly what personal data you collect, why it’s collected, and how it’s processed and shared. This foundational insight drives all other compliance efforts. Use DataGrail’s Live Data Map and Responsible Data Discovery to continuously review your third-party applications and reduce unnecessary exposure to sensitive data.
• Keep Privacy Notices Accurate and Current: Privacy policies must clearly reflect your actual data practices and comply with evolving legal requirements, regulators scrutinize these closely.
• Deploy Effective Consent and Opt-Out Mechanisms: Ensure consumers can easily exercise their privacy rights, and verify that these controls function reliably across all platforms. Implement DataGrail Consent to automate and proactively manage consent, including compliance with Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals.
• Maintain Detailed Compliance Records: A well-maintained RoPA, combined with your live data map and assessment materials, provides clear evidence that your privacy program is active, managed, and compliant with regulatory expectations. DataGrail’s Live Data Map uses patented system detection and AI-driven mapping across thousands of SaaS and internal tools to maintain a complete, up-to-date view of all processing activities. It also makes building and exporting a GDPR-ready RoPA fast and easy. 
• Vet and Manage Vendors Diligently: Since your third-party partners’ practices affect your liability, continuous monitoring and contract enforcement are non-negotiable.
• Automate Consumer Rights Requests: DataGrail’s Request Manager helps you handle access, deletion, and opt-out requests promptly and in line with regulatory deadlines, including CCPA, GDPR, and others.
• Stay Ahead of Enforcement Trends: Privacy laws and regulatory priorities evolve rapidly, regularly update your program and training to address new risks and expectations. Review compliance expectations for all U.S. state privacy laws and review insights from our January 2025 state webinar and Summer 2025 state webinar. 

Stay Ahead with DataGrail 

With DataGrail, privacy compliance becomes a strategic advantage: stay ahead of enforcement, strengthen consumer trust, and safeguard your business.

Request a demo with DataGrail to see how.

Also, join Privacy Basecamp, our exclusive Slack community for privacy professionals and get real-time enforcement updates, share resources, discuss best practices, and stay up to date on the latest state privacy legislation with experts in the field.

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