On April 7, 2026, the Alabama legislature unanimously passed House Bill 351, the Alabama Personal Data Protection Act, sending it to Governor Kay Ivey for approval. The bill cleared the Alabama House 104-0 and the Alabama Senate 34-0, and if Governor Ivey signs the bill, Alabama will join the growing list of states that have enacted a comprehensive consumer privacy statute. If enacted, the law would take effect on May 1, 2027.
On its surface, the bill largely follows Virginia-model framework and lays out core consumer rights, AG-exclusive enforcement, no private right of action, and a 45-day cure period. However, the Alabama bill differs in a number of key aspects.
1. Low Applicability Threshold
The Act sets out one of the lowest data threshold in the country. Specifically, the law applies to entities that control or process data of more than 25,000 Alabama consumers. Separately, the law applies if a business earns at least 25% of its revenue from selling personal data regardless of consumer count.
2. Definition of “Sale”
The Act defines a “sale” as the exchange of personal data for monetary or other valuable consideration where the controller receives a material benefit and the third party is unrestricted in its use. This definition is narrower than the CCPA but broader than monetary-only states like Virginia and Iowa. More importantly, the Act carves out two exceptions for data transfers that are found in no other state law: disclosures for “providing analytics services” and for “providing marketing services solely to the controller.”
First, if a business shares consumer data with a third-party analytics provider, that transfer is not considered a “sale,” even if the analytics company keeps and uses the data. Second, if a business shares consumer data with a third party that provides marketing services back to that business, such as a firm running targeted ad campaigns on the business’s behalf, that transfer is also excluded. The result is that a large volume of data sharing that would give consumers opt-out rights in states like California, Colorado, or Connecticut falls entirely outside the scope of Alabama’s Personal Data Protection Act.
3. Exemptions
Entity Exemptions: Businesses with fewer than 500 employees and nonprofits with fewer than 100 employees are exempt, provided they do not engage in the sale of personal data. The Act also exempts defined political organizations, a complication that has derailed privacy legislation in other states like Maine.
Data Exemptions: The Act exempts data already governed by federal law, as well as HR and B2B data. Specifically, the following federal-law data is carved out:
- HIPAA-regulated health data
- FCRA-covered consumer reports
- DPPA-protected motor vehicle records
- FERPA-covered education records
- Farm Credit Act data
- Airline Deregulation Act data
Children’s Data: Alabama sets the “known child” threshold at under 13 and treats COPPA compliance as sufficient for parental consent obligations under the Act. Consent is required for targeted advertising or sale of data for consumers ages 13 to 15, but, unlike Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia, which have added heightened protections for minors beyond the COPPA baseline, the Alabama Act stops there.
4. Enforcement Framework
The Act sets out a lighter compliance burden and does not require data protection impact assessments, universal opt-out signal mandate, or a permanent cure period. Under Alabama’s law, there will always be a chance to fix violations before facing enforcement.
The Act also does not require opt-outs when targeted ads are based on pseudonymous data—such as alphanumeric mobile device identifiers—as long as that data is stored separately from identifiable information. Most state privacy laws require opt-outs for behavioral targeting regardless of pseudonymity; Alabama joins only Kentucky, Iowa, and Tennessee in creating this gap. For the ad-tech industry, this is a welcome carveout; for consumer advocates, it is one of the bill’s biggest loopholes.
Lastly, civil penalties are also capped at $15,000 per violation, making this one of the softest enforcement postures in the state privacy landscape.
5. Industry and Advocacy Response
Consumer Reports has urged Governor Ivey to veto the bill, calling it a “lowest-common-denominator approach to privacy” riddled with loopholes, including but not limited to, the weak “sale” and “targeted advertising” definitions, the lack of universal opt-out or authorized agent provisions, and the pseudonymous data gap. On the other hand, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Mike Shaw, has framed it as a practical approach shaped by two years of collaboration with the attorney general’s office.
6. What Businesses Should Do Now
Companies that assumed they were too small for state privacy law should take a closer look. The 25,000-consumer threshold is one of the lowest in the country, and businesses with any meaningful contact with Alabama residents may well be covered. The separate 25%-of-revenue trigger could also sweep in niche data brokers with relatively few Alabama contacts. Before May 1, 2027, companies that touch consumer data should evaluate whether they cross the 25,000-consumer line, whether their data-sharing arrangements genuinely fit within the analytics and marketing carveouts rather than relying on loopholes that may not hold up under AG scrutiny, and whether their pseudonymous data practices are truly pseudonymous enough to qualify for the targeted-advertising gap. The Act’s enforcement posture is lighter than most states, but $15,000-per-violation penalties still accumulate quickly.







