If you are a privacy professional, you are likely in the middle of fiscal planning and facing a fundamental question: How much budget am I going to need for our 2027 privacy program?

Securing privacy funding has never been more complex, but the business case for it has never been stronger. According to recent data from Cisco’s 2026 Data and Privacy Benchmark Study, 99% of organizations surveyed reported at least one tangible benefit from their privacy-related investments, such as greater agility and innovation from having appropriate data controls, stronger customer loyalty and trust from being transparent about how data is collected and used, and improved operational efficiency from having data organized and managed. Even with clear ROI, a privacy budget is never guaranteed, and the requests that get approved are the ones tied to specific legal obligations and operational needs.

Getting executive budget buy-in for 2027 requires assessing your current privacy program alongside the operational and tech stack pain points, while accounting for new and evolving regulatory obligations. Executive boards don’t fund fear; they fund risk mitigation and operational efficiency. Read on to learn how to build a cohesive narrative that turns program gaps into approved funding.

Start With Where Your Program Currently Stands

Before estimating the 2027 privacy budget, you need an accurate read on where your privacy program stands today. When was the last time you completed a privacy program assessment? If your answer is a year or more ago, the program you reviewed then may no longer match the business. New products or features, new vendors and tools, new uses of personal information, and expansion into new markets can each bring new obligations. The legal landscape has shifted as well. Companies once outside the scope of certain state privacy laws may now fall within them. Laws that already apply to your organization might have been amended to include lower applicability thresholds or broader definitions of sensitive data like health or children’s data.

A privacy program assessment paired with maturity and risk scoring shows how consistently privacy practices are carried out and where the regulatory exposure sits. The results give you a prioritized list of gaps and a documented answer when executives ask why a specific area needs funding.

Privacy Risk Assessments Belong in the Plan

One obligation belongs in nearly every 2027 budget. Most state privacy laws require companies to conduct privacy risk assessments, also known as privacy impact assessments (PIAs) or data protection impact assessments (DPIAs), for high-risk processing. High-risk processing includes but is not limited to targeted advertising, selling personal information, processing sensitive or children’s data, certain profiling, and using automated decision-making technology (ADMT). States with this requirement include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia. Louisiana’s and Oklahoma’s laws take effect January 1, 2027, and Vermont’s takes effect January 1, 2028.

California carries the most weight in the US. Since January 1, 2026, the CCPA has required in-scope businesses to complete a privacy risk assessment before starting any processing that presents a significant risk to consumers’ privacy. Each assessment must weigh the benefits of the processing against its risks and document the safeguards in place. Processing that was already happening before 2026 needs an assessment too, and businesses have until December 31, 2027, to complete risk assessments. By April 1, 2028, businesses must report to CalPrivacy on the assessments they completed in 2026 and 2027, and a member of executive leadership must attest under penalty of perjury that they were done. After that, the report is due every April 1.

If your company has not built a risk assessment process yet, make it a priority in your 2027 plan. The budget question is: how will you get it done? Some companies can adapt PIA processes they already run for other laws. Others might need PIA software to manage templates, workflows, and documentation. And some companies might require additional people to conduct and review assessments, software to streamline the process, or both.

Downloadable Resource

Privacy Risk Assessments: PIA/DPIA Business Guide

 

Our Privacy Risk Assessment Guide breaks down the privacy review process with clear, straightforward language.

Learn More

Software, People, or Both? Let Your Pain Points Decide

The frustrations your team dealt with over the past year are some of the most useful budget data you have. Look at where work gets stuck and what keeps coming back to their desks.

Manual tasks are usually the first place to look. If your team runs core processes through spreadsheets, email chains, and calendar reminders, privacy software can automate much of that work. Areas that commonly benefit include data inventory, privacy rights, PIAs and DPIAs, third-party risk management, cookie consent, and universal consent and preference management. Software cannot run a privacy program on its own. When you price a tool, include implementation, configuration, and the people who will maintain it, not just the license.

It’s important to note that software only reduces a manual task burden if it connects to the systems where your data lives and works with your other tools. PIA software that doesn’t integrate with your data inventory, for example, means entering the same information twice. Even though software can streamline the process, it cannot replace conversations with the people who handle the data. Those conversations show what’s really happening with the data, whether the privacy notice is accurate, how privacy rights requests will be honored, and how risk will be evaluated. The entire point of a PIA is to understand data processing, evaluate and mitigate privacy risk.

Timing matters as well. Moving from vendor selection to full software deployment takes six to twelve months for most organizations. If you need a tool running in 2027, it’s a top line item that belongs in this budget.

Not every pain point calls for software. Repeated questions from business teams about specific program elements, such as when a vendor needs review or how to handle a rights request, usually point to a need for training or clearer procedures.

Questions about privacy laws and how to meet specific legal requirements may call for legal opinions from outside counsel or deeper training for the privacy team. If the workload has outgrown the team, consider budgeting for additional people through a new hire or outside support.

Budget for the Audits You Need

Policies and processes dictate how teams execute the privacy program, and audits reveal where those processes break down. This difference matters because regulators judge a privacy program by how it works in practice, not by what its policies say on paper. Audit findings show where gaps exist and give you documented support for any remediation budget you request. Four audits are worth considering:

Cookie and tracking technology audit: Confirms which cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies are running on your web properties. Testing reveals whether your banner is free of dark patterns and whether non-essential cookies stop firing once a visitor opts out. A cookie audit will also show if GPC signals are being honored on every site and whether opt-out links work as they should. Sites change constantly, so budget for recurring scans throughout the year rather than an annual review.

Privacy rights process audit: Testing requests from intake to completion shows whether intake methods listed on your privacy notice work and where verification, system searches, vendor handoffs, or response times break down. Findings here often point directly to a software, staffing, or training need, so schedule this audit early enough to inform the rest of your budget.

Third-party vendor risk audit: Vendors can change their data practices after onboarding. A vendor audit revisits how each vendor handles your data, including whether they use it for their own purposes, like training AI models, and whether they can support privacy rights requests. Contracts are a big part of this review because agreements signed even a year ago may lack the data protection provisions privacy laws now require, such as processing instructions, deletion or return of data terms, and obligations around subprocessors.

Privacy notice audit: Your privacy notice needs to be accurate and match how your company collects, uses, and discloses personal information today. Instructions for exercising privacy rights should point to a web form, email, or phone number that works. An audit will reveal whether all sections of the notice match your actual practices, and any gaps it uncovers may require budgeting for updates across your web properties and tracking technologies.

Look for Shared Budget Across Teams

Some privacy needs overlap with those of security and third-party risk teams because they may be trying to solve a similar problem. Vendor risk assessments are a common example. Privacy needs to know how vendors handle personal information, and security needs to know how vendors protect it. When one tool can meet both needs, the teams can submit a joint request instead of two separate ones, and leadership sees a single investment that solves more than one problem.

AI governance is another area to explore. Many companies are still figuring out how to govern AI use, and tools already in place may cover part of that need. Privacy platforms with assessment and inventory capabilities can often support AI tool and use case tracking as well as AI risk assessments. If your existing tools cover more than you expected, you can apply part of your budget request to a different need or use it to hire the people who will run the work.

Start the 2027 Conversation Now: Make the Case to Leadership

Budget decisions made this fall could determine what your team can deliver next year. Leadership weighs your request against every other business team, so a list of needs rarely gets funded on its own. The budget requests that get approved are backed up with evidence and framed in terms leadership already uses to make decisions.

  • Use your privacy program assessment findings. Give leadership a documented baseline showing which gaps carry the most risk, then use those findings to prioritize what needs funding first.
  • Tie requests to legal requirements and deadlines. Name the obligations the company must meet and when, such as completing CCPA risk assessments for existing high-risk processing by December 31, 2027, and the people or tools needed to meet them.
  • Demonstrate how privacy enables other teams. Work with marketing, sales, finance, and other business teams to understand their priorities, then connect your request with how new tool or privacy initiative supports these functions and drives efficiency and revenue.
  • Quantify the workload. Track the time your team spends on manual tasks like data inventory updates or privacy rights requests along with request volumes and response times. Those numbers show leadership exactly why software or additional resources are necessary.
  • Show the full cost. For each line item, include every related cost from software licensing, implementation, and ongoing maintenance to internal staff time and vendor support, so there are no surprises after approval.
  • Rank your requests. Separate what the company needs to meet legal requirements from what would improve efficiency. If the budget gets trimmed, you decide what gets cut.

How you frame each request matters as much as what’s in it. For example, compare “We need PIA software” with “We have 40 high-risk processing activities that require a privacy risk assessment by December 31, 2027, to comply with the CCPA. At our current pace of two assessments a month, we will complete less than half of them. PIA software and a part-time contractor would close that gap. This gives leadership a deadline, a measurable gap, a solution, and a clear stake in the outcome.

Planning Your 2027 Privacy Program?

Red Clover Advisors helps companies assess where their privacy programs stand, prioritize what needs attention, and put the right mix of people, processes, and technology in place. If you are building your 2027 budget and want a clear picture of your program’s gaps, we’d love to talk.