Demand for Data Privacy Management Software Will Remain Strong, Driven by Expanding Regulatory and Data Management Requirements, According to IDC

NEEDHAM, Mass.– The data privacy management software market saw soaring growth in 2020 with worldwide revenues up 46.1% year over year. International Data Corporation (IDC) expects this growth to continue over the next several years, driven by the further expansion of data privacy regulatory regimes worldwide. A new forecast from IDC estimates that data privacy management software revenues will nearly double between 2020 and 2025, reaching nearly $2.3 billion in 2025 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3%.

“It feels like a broken record when discussing data privacy regulations because every year data privacy regimes continue to grow in jurisdictions around the globe. But as repetitive as it can be, it is still the truth,” said Ryan O’Leary, research manager, Privacy and Legal Technology at IDC. “The frameworks and regulations that enterprises need to manage continue to explode. Every region seems to be debating privacy except for the U.S. Federal government. End users are struggling with the sheer volume of regulations and need help with the regulatory change management from software providers.”

In addition to the expanding data privacy regulations, organizations are also dealing with expansive and growing data volumes across a patchwork of databases and endpoints. And these endpoints are becoming increasingly dispersed as remote work continues to be the norm. There is a significant market opportunity for tools that help enterprises organize this data and limit the risk associated with it.

“Data visibility continues to be a blind spot for many organizations. There is strong and growing market demand for automated data discovery and classification tools that scan for sensitive data across both cloud and on-premises environments and to provide that single source of data truth. Solving the challenge of patchwork enterprise infrastructure and automation is the real golden ticket in data privacy,” O’Leary added.

Data privacy management software encapsulates the software specifically designed and marketed to enable enterprise compliance with data privacy regulations such as CCPA and GDPR. These software applications include functionality to help organizations collect, track, demonstrate, and manage data subjects’ consent. Further, these applications must facilitate, track, and automate discovery and storage of data subjects’ data as well as the servicing of data subjects exercising their rights. Many also provide facilities to automatically assess, monitor, and manage the progress of the privacy program activities as well as provide dashboards and reporting capabilities.

For organizations evaluating their data privacy management options, IDC recently published a MarketScape report that assesses 11 providers of data privacy management software. The report, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Data Privacy Management Software 2021 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US46858221), uses a comprehensive framework to assess these vendors relative to a set of criteria that explain both short-term and long-term success in the market. The 11 data privacy management software vendors evaluated in the MarketScape report are: 1Touch.io, BigID, Collibra, DataGrail, Exterro, OneTrust, Securiti, Smart Global Governance, Spririon, TrustArc, and WireWheel.