Additionally, this push for consumer privacy has led to various data protection regulations around the world now mandating far stricter controls over personal data and how it is utilised.

These evolving laws vary slightly in different markets, but consistently require that personal data be handled in ways that respect user privacy – making privacy a key topic for advertising buyers, sellers and tech vendors through 2025.

Here in Australia we are currently undergoing a privacy review, with draft legislation being delivered in two tranches. The first tranche was passed in late 2024 (review here), but it is the second tranche which will be more impactful for the advertising industry. We expect to see these sometime in the second half of 2025 once the elections are finalised, with a real focus on opted-in consent, the definitions of personal information & a right for consumers to 'be forgotten' if they so wish.

Additionally, advertising technologies have for some time now been working with ongoing signal loss (including increased third-party cookie deprecation and falling iOS opt-in rates) resulting in a loss of scale in addressability. Hence industry and ad tech vendors are actively working collaboratively to help buyers and sellers navigate a fragmented landscape of different privacy-preserving proposals across different web browsers and within in-app environments

Privacy and its governance will be key, as the importance and popularity of first-party data has grown, which will require far more robust privacy measures. Industry practices such as de-identification & encryption help ensure that this data remains secure and increasingly solutions are looking to be less invasive when enabling ad-targeting and personalisation.

However, a paradox exists between consumer demand for effective personalisation and targeted advertising as these ultimately will rely upon some form of collecting and analysis of user data, and that data being usable depending upon requirements. This need creates an inherent tension with privacy, resulting in companies looking to find ways to deliver relevant and engaging experiences without compromising user privacy.

Some Related Updates & Considerations

IAB Privacy Lab: The IAB Tech Lab is launching a Privacy Lab in H1 2025 to educate the industry on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) applications in digital advertising and to experiment with what technologies work most effectively for each stakeholder’s business. By providing this test-bed, Tech Lab can reduce the costly implementation time for many companies to evaluate these new technologies. Here in Australia the IAB will be participating in this project and enabling local businesses here to test various PETs within the Tech Lab Privacy Lab, tune them to their optimal settings, and then redeploy them in their own environments with partners, saving time and money.

AI: is being used more and more in ad personalisation, demanding a need to feed AI systems with data that genuinely respects privacy. Techniques that ensure AI can learn from data without compromising privacy are required as a result. This will be a hot topic in relation to privacy throughout 2025.

PETS (Privacy-Enhancing Technologies): these are advancing, making it more feasible to implement these methods at scale. Innovations in differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and secure multi-party computation provide new ways to personalise experiences whilst safeguarding data.