Privacy Policy Compliance Frameworks

Your privacy policy isn't judged in a vacuum. Auditors, regulators, and enterprise customers each evaluate it against specific frameworks — and each framework has its own expectations for what the policy must disclose, promise, and get right. These guides explain what each framework actually requires from a privacy policy, where policies most often fall short, and how to prepare for a review or audit.

Privacy regulations

Laws that directly govern how you collect and process personal data. Non-compliance carries legal penalties, and your privacy policy is the primary public evidence of compliance.

• GDPR — General Data Protection Regulation — The EU's privacy law, and the strictest baseline worldwide. Applies to any business serving EU users. Your privacy notice must satisfy detailed transparency requirements under Articles 13 and 14.
• CCPA/CPRA — California Consumer Privacy Act — California's consumer privacy law, with explicit privacy policy content requirements: categories of data, sale/sharing disclosures, and consumer rights notices. Especially relevant for e-commerce businesses.
• HIPAA — Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — Governs protected health information in the US. Requires a legally mandated Notice of Privacy Practices with prescribed content. See also our healthcare privacy guide.

Security and audit frameworks

Standards your customers ask about during procurement. Your privacy policy is reviewed as audit evidence, so inconsistencies between the policy and actual practice become findings.

• SOC 2 — Trust Services Criteria — The de facto security attestation for SaaS companies. The Privacy criterion evaluates whether your public privacy commitments match your controls.
• ISO 27001 — Information Security Management — The international ISMS standard. Certification audits examine whether your published privacy commitments are backed by documented processes.
• PCI DSS — Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — Required for anyone handling card data. Its privacy policy role is narrower but real: your policy must not contradict how cardholder data is actually handled.

Which frameworks apply to you?

Most businesses answer to more than one framework at once — a SaaS startup selling to healthcare customers may face GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and SOC 2 simultaneously. Our use-case guides walk through the common combinations by industry and company stage.

When you submit a policy for review, you select the frameworks that apply, and our AI analysis plus attorney verification checks your policy against each one — with a signed Record of Review documenting the result.