The new EU Data Act will take effect on September 12, 2025, so firms will need to get ready for upcoming data access requirements. Make sure you know what data is in scope and the geographical reach, as Member States will be setting penalties for non-compliance.

Data transfers and localization requirements will be in the spotlight for 2025 across different jurisdictions. Expect big fines for non-compliance.

Also, we predict significant legal challenge to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. This could potentially jeopardize data transfers from the UK and Europe to the US.

Too much reliance is being currently placed by organizations on a few critical cloud service providers with little in the way of consideration for the consequences of these systems and services failing or going off-line.

My view is that we will see more severe outages in the future before businesses seriously consider their stance and before resilience becomes embedded in their operations.

As a business owner I also feel strongly that some of the restrictions on the ability of businesses to capture and utilize data represent an imbalance and has shifted too far in favor of the consumer.

The result? More restrictions on what is freely available to end users and the eventual fracturing of the internet into stuff that can be trusted, but must be paid for, and stuff that cannot be relied on and so has no value whatsoever.

My look into the crystal ball reveals information on a more granular area of data – voice and its capture for surveillance and analysis.

This may be very niche with regards to communication monitoring but it represents a final piece in the complex monitoring puzzle.

I predict that through 2025 regulators will indicate that voice coverage will be required to mirror eComms surveillance.

Security of data which is stored on or transferred through clouds will remain a huge challenge, and a priority.

But, moving forward, the industry will need to think of new innovative ways of powering the huge and ever-growing data centres.

More and more firms could choose to move towards green energy, both for ethical/ environmental as well as business reasons.

The rise in importance of data and its value will increase further.

Its use for analytics, control, reporting and competitive advantage will come to the fore next year.

Data people (people who know data) will command an even greater premium in ’25.

Let’s hope that corporates start to look more closely at the astronomical profits that the Big cloud providers are making and figure out who is footing that tab!