Expected KVKK Developments Going into 2026: What Should Businesses Do?

⏱️ Reading time: 13 min · 📁 Category: KVKK & Legislation Developments

Expected KVKK Developments Going into 2026: What Should Businesses Do?

2025 was one of the busiest years in the KVKK ecosystem, both in terms of auditing and implementation.
The Board issued decisions more frequently, updated sector guides and introduced
stricter procedures for data breach notifications.

As we approached 2026, it became clear that structural changes would directly affect businesses, both in the draft legislation and in the Board's decision patterns.

The focus of KVKK practice in 2026: technical evidence obligations + limits on digital tracking technologies + renewed explicit consent. 1. Expected regulation: giving the cookie and tracking technologies guide legal status

During 2024–2025, the Board moved closer to the EU approach in cookie decisions. December 2025 draft work signalled a shift from cookie guidance to a regulatory instrument.

Expected changes in 2026:

• Explicit consent required for advertising and analytics cookies (the scope of legitimate interest may be drastically narrowed)
• Bans on dark-pattern design – interfaces that highlight the accept button may be penalised
• Top limit to cookie storage times
• Special notification obligations when sharing data with third parties

Sector impact: E-commerce, media and advertising technology companies will need to redesign their cookie infrastructure. 2. Expected regulation: new limits on profiling

Throughout 2025, the Board made numerous decisions in the areas of behavioral advertising and profiling. These decisions lay the groundwork for future regulations in 2026.

Expected results:

• Profile creation will only be possible with explicit consent
• Detailing consent texts for "personalized campaign"
• Keep auditable profiling records
• Transparency obligation for profiling algorithms

All companies using advertising targeting will need to update their consent texts in the first quarter of 2026. 3. Expected regulation: standardising legitimate interest assessments

In 2025, most companies processing data on legitimate-interest grounds were found risky in audits because necessity and balancing tests were missing.

Expectations for the 2026 drafts:

• Mandatory format for a legitimate interest assessment (LIA)
• Much narrower interpretation of legitimate interest in employer practices
• The possibility of complete abolition of legitimate interest in marketing processes

Legitimate interest will be accepted only for short-term, minimally intrusive processing with no alternative method. 4. Expected regulation: tighter data breach notification procedures

The issue most criticised by the Board in 2025 was delayed breach notification.

Changes under consideration for 2026:

• Stricter interpretation of the 72-hour notification requirement
• Mandatory technical report, root cause analysis and burden of proof package
• Sector-specific breach reporting formats
• Obligation to maintain verifiable logs

Special breach notification forms may be introduced for finance, healthcare, telecoms and e-commerce. 5. Expected regulation: expanded protection for employee data

Employee data was among the KVKK topics drawing the most complaints in 2024–2025. The Board’s approach points to more advanced standards in 2026.

Possible changes:

• Covert monitoring may be banned completely
• The proportionality limit on GPS and productivity tracking tools
• Mandatory timestamps on logs of access to employee data
• Special consent requirement for performance analytics

In 2026, employee data can be classified as "high protection category". 6. Expected regulation: AI models and datasets

In 2025, the Board issued its first guidance-like decisions on AI models. The 2026 drafts are expected to introduce systematic regulation in this area.

Possible arrangements:

• Anonymity testing in data sets used for model training
• Transparency in decision-making processes of AI systems
• explicit consent for automated decision making
• DTIA requirement in third-party AI services

Detecting shadow profiling in AI models will be an audit focus in 2026. 7. Preparing for 2026: What Should Businesses Do?

Steps that businesses must implement urgently in light of expected regulations:

1) Redesigning consent + cookie management

• explicit consent mechanism for campaign cookies
• Separate analytics from advertising
• Updating 3rd party cookie lists

2) Documenting legitimate interest tests

• Prepare LIA forms
• Proportionality reviews in employer processes

3) Update data inventory and retention policies

• Reclassifying profile creation processes
• Shortening retention time in employee data

4) Creating log management and audit trail

• Technical solutions that ensure log integrity
• Unauthorised access detection systems

5) Conducting risk assessments for AI processes

• Review model-training datasets
• AI explainability mechanisms (explainability)

The key to compliance in 2026: strengthen consent, narrow legitimate-interest use and increase technical evidence obligations.

2026 KVKK readiness assessment