News Brief: New Consumer Rights Law (March 2026) — What HR, Recruiting and Ad Tech Vendors Must Do This Week

Hook: The March 2026 consumer rights law is not just for marketers — HR and recruiting tech must act now.

On March 2026 a sweeping consumer rights law introduced new obligations around consent, data access, and automated decisioning. Though often framed as an ad-tech story, its clauses apply to any service that profiles or scores people — including ATS vendors, assessment platforms, and candidate marketplaces.

Immediate triage for hiring teams

If you run a recruiting platform or use algorithmic assessments, your checklist this week should include:

• Identify automated decision points where a job-seeker is profiled.
• Publish clear notices about algorithmic decisioning and offer opt-outs.
• Ensure data portability: candidates must be able to request copies of their application data.

For ad tech and recruitment marketing

Marketers and vendor partners must align to ensure lawful targeting. Vendors need to review the immediate guidance from legal and product teams on compliance; more background on what ad tech vendors must do is available in this briefing: New Consumer Rights Law — Ad Tech Triage (March 2026).

What product teams should change this week

1. Add transparent settings in candidate portals for data access and deletion.
2. Log and surface decisions made by scoring models — keep an audit trail.
3. Prepare a comms playbook for candidates requesting data exports.

“If you surface the model’s role in hiring decisions, you’ll both reduce risk and build trust with applicants.” — Privacy counsel, 2026

Operational case studies and tools

Some teams are using off-the-shelf export bundles and consent modules. For practical playbooks on responding to regulation-driven changes in marketplaces and operations, product teams can draw lessons from carrier-rate response playbooks and small shop operations: responding to carrier rate changes.

How this affects candidate experience

Expect an initial hit to conversion as consent flows are tightened. However, transparent flows that clearly state benefits and privacy trade-offs increase trust and long-term retention. Think of consent as a user experience challenge and test copy and placement like any high-stakes product page — learnings can be borrowed from CRO frameworks: product page CRO quick wins.

Checklist for vendors (a 48-hour sprint)

• Inventory personal data and profiling endpoints.
• Implement a candidate data export endpoint.
• Create a clear algorithmic decisioning disclosure.
• Test deletion and portability flows end-to-end.

What HR leaders should communicate to candidates

Use simple, empathetic language. Explain what data you collect, why, and how applicants can access or delete it. Provide contact points and SLA expectations for data requests.

Further reading

• New Consumer Rights Law (March 2026) — Ad Tech Triage
• Security at Border Control: JPEG Forensics and Digital Identity — background on identity checks that may interact with portability requirements.
• Case Study: Cutting Build Times 3× — operational guidance for engineering teams responding on a tight timeline.

Bottom line: Treat this law as a product and operations problem. Move quickly to reduce legal risk and use the change as an opportunity to build trust with applicants.