Our 2026 edition of A Legal Guide to Privacy and Data Security, a comprehensive resource designed to help businesses and organizations understand and manage the rapidly evolving landscape of privacy and data security laws in the United States and worldwide has been published by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
The guide continues its mission of providing accessible, plain-language explanations of complex privacy obligations faced by businesses and organizations along with best practices. A digital version of the Guide is available free of charge through DEED’s Small Business Assistance Office website and Lathrop GPM.
This twelfth edition of the guide arrives as more U.S. states enact comprehensive privacy laws – 20 states as of January 1, 2026 – creating a patchwork system that requires businesses and organizations to comply simultaneously with varying definitions, consumer rights, thresholds and enforcement regimes.
Minnesota’s version the Minnesota Consumer Privacy Act (MCPA), which took effect July 31, 2025, introduced new requirements including mandatory data inventories, profiling transparency, retention limits and documentation obligations. Unlike many other state data privacy laws, the MCPA does not exempt and covers non-profit organization.
The 2026 guide highlights several areas of concern:
1. The United States remains without a single comprehensive federal privacy law – leaving businesses and organizations that collect and process personal data to manage a growing multistate compliance burden.
Twenty states now have comprehensive data privacy laws, each with different applicability thresholds, definitions of “personal data,” and obligations for businesses and organizations. This patchwork approach to privacy legislation creates compliance and liability risks for companies that have multistate operations.
As of January 1, 2026, the following states have enacted new comprehensive data privacy laws: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
2. Regulation is intensifying around children’s data, AI systems and automated decision making.
The guide outlines strengthened children’s privacy protections, new AI governance expectations and consumer rights to understand and challenge algorithmic decisions.
3. Data security expectations are rising, with frameworks like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) becoming de facto standards.
Regulators increasingly view “reasonable security” as mandatory; inadequate safeguards may be deemed unfair or deceptive practices under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act. The California Consumer Privacy Act allows a private right of action in the event of a data breach and the absence of “reasonable security”.
4. Businesses must operationalize privacy through data mapping, retention limits, documentation and vendor oversight.
The guide stresses that regulators now expect proof of compliance, not just policies – and Minnesota’s MCPA is the first in the United States to expressly require maintaining a data inventory.
As privacy laws evolve at an unprecedented pace, businesses and organizations of every size must review and update their compliance programs. This year’s edition of the guide underscores not only the expanding number of state privacy laws but also the new regulatory focus areas – particularly AI, children’s data and automated decision making – that will shape compliance strategies going forward.
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