ISACA’s latest State of Privacy survey highlights rising stress, shrinking teams and growing AI adoption among privacy professionals in India

ISACA, the leading global professional association dedicated to advancing careers in digital trust, has unveiled its State of Privacy 2026 report, highlighting growing pressure on privacy professionals amid India’s rapidly expanding digital economy. As organisations across banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), fintech, healthtech, e-commerce and AI-led platforms accelerate data-driven innovation, privacy teams are navigating a complex environment shaped by rapid technological change, evolving regulatory expectations and constrained resources.

The survey, based on insights from more than 1,800 privacy professionals worldwide, including 121 respondents from India, finds that 55 percent of privacy professionals in India say their roles are more stressful today than five years ago. They identified their biggest sources of stress as the rapid evolution of technology (76 percent), followed by compliance challenges (75 percent) and resource shortages (67 percent), pressures that are increasingly visible in India’s fast-growing digital and AI-driven enterprises ...