Latin America’s Privacy Pivot: How to Build a Regionally Tailored Compliance Strategy in 2025

From AI regulation to cross-border transfers, Latin America (LATAM) privacy laws are growing fast. Here’s how to keep up without losing your grip.

If Latin America’s privacy landscape were a movie, 2025 would be its dramatic turning point, the kind where the main character gains clarity, confidence, and a pretty solid enforcement toolkit. Privacy laws across LATAM aren’t just catching up with global standards. They’re rewriting the script.

With GDPR-inspired reforms accelerating in countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina and emerging laws in El Salvador and Guatemala taking the spotlight, organizations can’t afford to treat the region as a regulatory afterthought. From biometric data bans to neurodata rights, LATAM’s privacy framework is both a patchwork and a powerhouse in the making.

So, what does this mean for your privacy program? Let’s dig in.

The state of LATAM privacy laws in 2025

The evolution of privacy regulation in LATAM has followed three major regulatory shifts:

1. Constitutional rights (1980s–1990s): Think habeas data, the right to access and correct personal data in public and private databases. This right remains relevant, especially in countries like Ecuador, where it is extensive and enforceable.
2. Consent-centric laws (Early 2000s): Countries like Paraguay and Uruguay adopted frameworks that placed consent at the core. These laws emphasized Access, Rectification, Cancellation, and Objection (ARCO rights), with a strong emphasis on financial data.
3. GDPR-inspired legislation (Post-2018): Brazil’s LGPD led the charge, followed by Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, and El Salvador. These laws introduce additional legal bases for processing, Data Protection Officers (DPOs), data portability, and risk-based compliance obligations.

LATAM’s leading laws: The privacy heavyweights of 2025

While Latin America’s privacy landscape is undeniably fragmented, several countries have emerged as standard-setters either for their GDPR-inspired comprehensiveness, EU adequacy status, or forward-thinking reforms. Here are the key players shaping the regional narrative:

Argentina: Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)

Argentina has been a trailblazer in the region, modeling its law on the European framework and securing EU adequacy status back in 2003.

• Requires explicit consent for data processing.
• Prohibits transfers to jurisdictions without adequate protection.
• Provides criminal penalties for violations.
• Grants strong data subject rights, including access, correction, and deletion.

Learn more about PDPA

Uruguay: Data Protection and Habeas Data Action Law

Uruguay is another GDPR-aligned jurisdiction already granted EU adequacy and is lauded for its robust privacy safeguards.

• Recognizes habeas data as a constitutional and statutory right.
• Empowers individuals to access, rectify, and erase their data.
• Enforces restrictions on cross-border data flows.

Brazil: General Data Protection Law (LGPD)

Brazil’s LGPD is the most influential privacy law in LATAM, both in scope and enforcement.

• Inspired by the GDPR, covering personal and sensitive data.
• Establishes a national Data Protection Authority (DPA): the ANPD.
• Recognizes non-discrimination and prevention as unique principles.
• Includes model contractual clauses and risk-based obligations for high-impact processing.

Learn more about LGPD

Mexico Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties (2010)

Mexico was early to the game, but faces challenges with political oversight of its privacy authority.

• Requires immediate breach notification.
• Includes accountability and Data Protection Officer (DPO) appointment mandates.
• Covers both public and private sectors through separate laws.

Colombia: Statutory Law 1581 of 2012

Colombia’s robust compliance regime includes mandatory database registration and standalone DPO obligations.

• Recognizes ARCO rights.
• Mandates DPOs and registration with the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC).
• Draft reforms aim to regulate neurodata and AI.

Peru: Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 29733)

Peru’s secondary regulations introduced some of the region’s tightest breach notification rules.

• Requires notification as soon as facts are confirmed.
• Restricts cross-border data transfers.
• Applies to biometric and neurodata.

Chile: Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) 2024

Chile’s newly reformed PDPL brings the country closer to GDPR alignment with extraterritorial scope, enhanced individual rights, and a dedicated enforcement authority.

• Applies to public and private entities processing data of Chilean residents.
• Requires informed, revocable consent for processing.
• Grants access, correction, deletion, and new portability rights.
• Introduces mandatory breach notification and DPO obligations.
• Establishes a national data protection authority with sanctioning power.

Learn more about PDPL

Costa Rica: Law on the Protection of Individuals Regarding the Processing of Personal Data (Law No. 8968)

While progressive, Costa Rica still lacks a fully empowered enforcement body.

• Requires database registration with the Agency for the Protection of Residents’ Data (PRODHAB).
• Mandates breach notification within five working days.

Paraguay: Data Protection Law (focused on commercial data)

A narrowly scoped law with no dedicated DPA yet.

• Focused on commercial information and credit data.
• Prohibits sensitive data processing.
• Mandates data erasure after specific time periods.

Ecuador & Panama: Constitutional Provisions

Though not yet armed with comprehensive laws, both countries embed privacy rights directly into their constitutions.

• Require consent for data collection.
• Future omnibus laws are expected to follow.

Regional themes shaping privacy in Latin America

Though Latin America’s privacy landscape varies widely by country, a set of shared undercurrents is beginning to shape a regional identity that’s heavily influenced by global standards, domestic constitutional traditions, and increasingly, economic pragmatism.

Many of the region’s privacy laws reflect familiar building blocks: individual rights, consent-based processing, and restrictions on cross-border transfers, but the gap between legal structure and operational reality remains a defining feature.

Comprehensive laws may exist on paper, but enforcement and implementation often hinge on the resources, independence, and political stability of each country’s data protection authority. Some agencies, like Colombia’s SIC or Brazil’s ANPD, are becoming formidable enforcers. Others are underpowered, understaffed, or tasked with managing multiple, sometimes conflicting responsibilities like transparency and privacy under one roof.

Still, the momentum is undeniable. Countries are aligning with GDPR-like principles not just to safeguard individual rights, but to unlock economic advantages. Adequacy status with the European Union, smoother cross-border data flows, and investor confidence are all incentives driving legislative reform and regional interoperability. Initiatives like the Ibero-American Data Protection Network’s model clauses and OECD-aligned frameworks offer a soft path toward harmonization, even without a centralized LATAM privacy regime.

What this means for organizations is simple: regional consistency doesn’t equal uniformity. Yes, the laws may look similar, but enforcement thresholds, breach notification timelines, legal terminology, and the availability of Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) or Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) can shift dramatically between neighbors. Operating successfully in this environment requires more than a check-the-box approach. It demands context-aware compliance strategies, localized program design, and close monitoring of both legal reform and enforcement posture.

In short, Latin America is not just adopting modern privacy laws. It’s shaping them to fit its own constitutional values, regulatory capacities, and economic realities. And that makes understanding these common themes less about spotting similarities and more about seeing where they diverge in practice.

Enforcement is heating up: What the regulators are focusing on

Forget the slap-on-the-wrist era. Enforcement in LATAM is shifting from normative (rules on paper) to operational (rules in action).

Recent enforcement highlights:

• Mercado Libre was fined by Colombia’s DPA for requiring users to provide biometric data to access their accounts—an unlawful practice under Colombian law that emphasizes proportionality and data minimization.
• In Brazil, TikTok became the subject of a preliminary investigation regarding its handling of children’s personal data and the lack of transparency around how user information may be used to train AI algorithms. The case reflects growing regulatory interest in how platforms collect data from minors.
• Meta also came under early scrutiny in Brazil over its AI model training practices. Investigations are exploring whether data subjects were given clear, lawful options to opt out of having their personal information used to train generative AI systems.
• Worldcoin has faced mounting investigations in Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, with authorities questioning its use of biometric data (notably iris scans), the adequacy of consent mechanisms, and whether compensation structures may violate privacy principles.

Across the board, biometric data and children’s privacy have become top priorities, often prompting collaborative investigations across multiple countries via the Ibero-American Data Protection Network.

The table below outlines the enforcement bodies and their relative strength across key LATAM jurisdictions, highlighting where privacy laws have real regulatory teeth and where oversight remains limited.

Country	Enforcement Body	Key Powers	Enforcement Strength
Argentina	National Directorate of Personal Data Protection (DNPDP)	Investigates complaints, imposes sanctions, operates a database registry, and issues regulations.	Moderate: Active oversight with limited resourcing.
Uruguay	Regulatory and Control Unit of Personal Data (URCDP)	Supervises compliance, issues guidelines, sanctions violations, and oversees international transfers.	Strong: EU adequacy supports credibility.
Mexico	Secretariat for Anti‑Corruption and Good Governance	Oversees private‑sector compliance, investigates complaints, issues regulations, and imposes sanctions.	Moderate: Active authority under the Executive, but with reduced independence compared to INAI’s former constitutional autonomy.
Colombia	Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC)	Investigates violations, imposes sanctions, approves BCRs, and monitors sensitive data processing.	Strong: Known for proactive enforcement.
Chile	No dedicated DPA; courts handle enforcement	Legal enforcement via judiciary; limited ability to issue guidance or sanctions.	Limited: No centralized authority limits oversight.
Paraguay	No dedicated DPA; courts handle enforcement	Judicial enforcement only; lacks a regulatory body to issue guidance or conduct investigations.	Limited: Limited institutional capacity.
Peru	Agency under Ministry of Justice (under-resourced)	Investigates violations, provides guidance; enforcement is limited by staffing and political support.	Moderate: Limited independence/resources.

AI, FinTech, and neurodata: LATAM’s new privacy frontiers

2025 is about more than catching up to Europe. It’s about addressing tomorrow’s tech today.

AI governance

Across Latin America, regulators view AI through the dual lenses of privacy protection and human rights enforcement. In countries like Colombia and Chile, draft reforms already target algorithmic profiling and automated decision-making, particularly when used in sensitive sectors such as public services and law enforcement.

Colombia’s draft data protection bill, for example, proposes new rights tied to AI use, including transparency in algorithmic logic and protections against discriminatory profiling. Thus, AI governance is placed squarely within the bounds of constitutional dignity and personal autonomy.

Brazil’s ANPD has also clarified that AI training on personal data is not exempt from scrutiny. Its recent precautionary suspension of Meta’s model training activities underscored a growing insistence on lawful processing bases, meaningful transparency, and functional opt-out mechanisms. As AI capabilities grow, so does the demand for AI accountability frameworks integrating privacy at every step, from training to deployment.

FinTech and open finance

Latin America’s booming FinTech sector is driving financial inclusion, but it’s also outpacing traditional regulatory safeguards, especially regarding data privacy. Brazil’s Open Finance framework, for example, requires financial institutions to enable user-directed data sharing via secure APIs.

While this opens new competitive opportunities for banks, lenders, and startups, it also raises serious privacy questions:

• Who controls the data once shared?
• How is consent obtained and honored?
• And what safeguards exist against overcollection or repurposing?

Emerging regulations in countries like Mexico and Brazil are beginning to address these gaps, demanding stronger disclosures, purpose limitations, and oversight of automated financial decisions like credit scoring. As more FinTech players integrate AI into behavioral analytics and personalization engines, regional regulators are pushing for privacy-by-design as the standard—not a luxury.

In LATAM, financial innovation now comes with an expectation: protect user data, or risk losing trust and market access.

Neurotechnologies

If GDPR gave us the right to be forgotten, Latin America may be pioneering the right to not be read, at least not by a brain scanner.

Neurodata, once a sci-fi concept, is now on the regulatory agenda across several LATAM countries. Both Chile and Peru legally define neurodata—data derived from brain activity or neural interfaces—as a category of sensitive personal data, placing it under the highest level of protection. This classification isn’t just theoretical. It’s actively shaping case law, compliance expectations, and proposed legislation.

In Chile, the Supreme Court’s Emotiv ruling set a global precedent, becoming the first judicial decision to recognize “mental privacy” as a fundamental right. The case centered on using wearable neurotech devices capable of collecting brainwave data without sufficient transparency or consent. The court held that such technologies risk infringing on identity, free will, and the psychological integrity of individuals, which are rights now explicitly enshrined in Chile’s constitution.

Peru, too, has taken steps to regulate neural data. Its data protection authority recognizes neuro data as part of the broader category of biometric and high-risk personal information. The country’s updated regulations require additional safeguards, including explicit consent, purpose limitation, and heightened breach notification for any unauthorized access or processing.

Looking ahead, Colombia’s draft data protection bill proposes a sweeping framework that goes even further, introducing five new data subject rights specifically for neurotechnologies. These include the right to mental integrity, free development of personality, and protection from automated profiling based on neural patterns. If passed, this would place Colombia at the legal forefront of neuro-rights globally alongside Chile’s constitutional amendments and Spain’s draft reforms.

What makes LATAM’s neurodata movement especially noteworthy is its proactive posture. Unlike the EU or U.S., which are still grappling with how to classify and regulate brain-computer interface technologies, LATAM regulators are carving out legal space before the technology hits mass adoption.

For organizations working with wearables, brain-machine interfaces, neuromarketing tools, or biometric emotion recognition software, this means heightened risk and higher expectations. Transparency, informed consent, and data minimization aren’t optional. In these jurisdictions, they’re constitutional.

Building a regionally tailored privacy compliance strategy

So how do you prepare your privacy program for LATAM’s fast-shifting terrain? Here’s a practical roadmap.

1. Anchor your program in GDPR principles

Most LATAM laws already align with or aspire to align with the GDPR. A principle-based foundation (legality, proportionality, accountability) can be your compass across jurisdictions.

2. Customize for country-level nuance

Don’t copy-paste compliance. While many laws share ARCO rights, consent requirements, and transfer rules, enforcement varies wildly. Colombia holds processors to controller-level standards. Uruguay has specific rules for biometric notices. Brazil mandates that DPOs must speak Portuguese. Localization matters.

3. Monitor local developments relentlessly

Whether it’s Mexico’s political shake-up or Brazil’s evolving criteria for “high-risk” processing, change in LATAM is constant and complex. You need a consistent way to track DPA guidance, enforcement trends, and draft legislation across jurisdictions.

While hiring a dedicated LATAM compliance lead is one option, it’s not the only one. Tools like Nymity Research offer curated legal insights, operational templates, and daily alerts that make it easier for your team to stay informed and responsive without breaking the budget.

4. Use approved transfer mechanisms

Cross-border data flows remain a complex puzzle. While Ibero-American model contractual clauses are gaining traction, organizations should also evaluate how SCCs and Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs) function across LATAM.

SCCs are generally accepted in countries with GDPR-inspired laws like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and are useful for enabling international transfers, particularly when adequacy status isn’t yet in place. Brazil has even introduced model clauses similar to the EU’s SCCs.

However, not all LATAM jurisdictions explicitly recognize SCCs, and organizations may be required to conduct Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) to confirm equivalent protection in the receiving country.

Meanwhile, BCRs offer a strong alternative for intra-group transfers, especially in Colombia, which mandates BCRs for group-wide transfers under Decree 255 of 2022. Just note: BCRs require regulatory approval and can be more resource-intensive to implement.

In short, SCCs and BCRs are powerful tools in the LATAM compliance toolkit, but their effectiveness depends heavily on local law maturity and enforcement posture. Tailor your approach accordingly.

5. Apply risk-based compliance for high-sensitivity use cases

Processing children’s data? Training generative AI models? Collecting biometrics? Use DPIAs even when not strictly required. It’s a regulator’s love language.

LATAM compliance can’t wait, but you don’t have to do it alone

Too often, LATAM privacy has been treated like a side quest in the global compliance game; easy to delay, easy to deprioritize. But in 2025, that mindset is both outdated and expensive. Regulatory agencies across the region aren’t just legislating; they’re investigating, enforcing, and shaping the global narrative on everything from neuro data to AI governance.

To navigate this moment, think like a strategist, not a survivor. Invest in localization, monitor like a hawk, and lead with accountability. LATAM compliance isn’t a future-proofing exercise; it’s now a measurable business risk and a clear opportunity for competitive advantage.

To stay ahead without burning out your privacy team or legal budget, you need more than spreadsheets and guesswork. That’s where TrustArc can help.

That’s why tools like Nymity Research and Data Mapping & Risk Manager are essential.

Nymity Research equips your team with expert-curated regulatory guidance and enforcement intelligence, tailored for operational use. Track over 1,000 global privacy laws, including AI regulations, with access to 244+ jurisdictions and legal summaries built for privacy teams (not just lawyers). With daily alerts and advanced search filters, it’s your legal desk without the legal overhead.

Data Mapping & Risk Manager helps you move from reactive to ready. Automatically generate GDPR-compliant ROPAs, map data flows across systems, detect high-risk transfers, and initiate DPIAs or vendor assessments with just a few clicks. You’ll simplify third-party risk management while producing audit-ready documentation on demand.

If LATAM is on your privacy roadmap (and it should be), don’t wait to get compliant. Let these tools help you scale smart, move faster, and stay ready for what’s next.