What Is OneTrust? Key Features + Pros and Cons

Privacy rules touch almost every corner of a company, especially when it comes to handling sensitive data. Confidentiality guidelines cover everything from marketing emails to employee information, AI use, and even vendor risks. If you don’t have a central data collection system, you may find yourself relying on spreadsheets, scattered emails, and tools that don’t talk to each other. That can be risky, when mistakes can lead to major fines or privacy breaches, which can drive customers away.

One widely trusted privacy management software is OneTrust. Its platform simplifies privacy, risk, and data governance, bringing them all into one place. This can help ensure privacy and security are built into your daily operations, not added on after the fact. Learn more about this company and whether it could be the right fit for your own business operations.

What is OneTrust

• Privacy & data governance
• GRC & security assurance
• Ethics & compliance
• ESG & sustainability

Founded in 2016 by CEO Kabir Barday and headquartered in Atlanta, OneTrust is a global software company with a leading platform for data protection, governance, and regulatory compliance. Its tools help align data practices with global laws like the GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and EU AI Act, ensuring compliance and building trust with stakeholders.

OneTrust’s solution for unifying data compliance is a platform divided into four “clouds” to match distinct responsibilities. Companies can pick and choose from this suite of options:

Privacy & data governance

This cloud is for consent and preference management, a common entry point for many businesses, which allows people to opt in or out of emails or digital tracking. It also manages cookie consent banners, records proving user choices were respected, and data-rights requests like asking a company to share or delete personal data. Once this step is in place, it’s easier to expand into other areas, such as data governance, security, or ESG reporting, since all the tools are built to work together.

GRC & security assurance

This cloud focuses on governance, risk, and compliance (GRC). It helps you track security assessments, maintain risk logs, and organize audit documentation, all in one centralized system.

Ethics & compliance

This cloud is more about people than data. It supports employee training on ethical practices and provides secure channels for reporting misconduct or raising internal concerns.

ESG & sustainability

This final cloud tracks environmental and social impact. Use it to monitor metrics like carbon emissions and to generate reports for stakeholders, investors, or regulators.

OneTrust connects directly with other business tools you may already use (like Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot) through pre-built integrations and application programming interfaces (APIs). This way consent and preference data flow automatically across your systems. When someone clicks Unsubscribe, the change is logged and synced everywhere it matters—email lists, loyalty programs, or call-center scripts—keeping all your channels aligned and compliant.

Key OneTrust features

• Consent and preferences
• Third-party management
• Al governance
• Privacy automation
• Tech risk and compliance
• Data use governance

You can start with the features that meet your most urgent needs—like consent management or vendor tracking—and expand as your operations grow or regulations change. Here are OneTrust’s key features to consider as your privacy, security, or AI governance needs evolve.

Consent and preferences

When you run an online store, you need to keep track of your customers’ preferences, such as whether they want to receive promotional emails or SMS shipping updates. OneTrust’s consent management tools handle this for you, generating and displaying easy-to-use preference panels. There customers can choose whether to receive emails, texts, or other messages, and update their choices.

The platform keeps a record of each choice, storing it centrally and syncing with your connected systems. This means there’s no need to manually create popups, forms, or back-end logic to collect consent.

As one example, a boutique clothing shop may ask customers to click different checkboxes to receive promotional content on style tips, seasonal sale alerts, and invites to local pop-ups. OneTrust records each choice, so messages only go to those who asked for them.

When you run ads, OneTrust connects consent data directly to ad platforms, so campaigns adjust based on each visitor’s preferences. If someone declines tracking, personalized ads are blocked. If they consent, tailored ads run.

Third-party management

Small business owners often work with numerous vendors—payment processors, marketing platforms, shipping services—each of which handles customer data. That’s where data discovery comes in: OneTrust can automatically scan connected systems to identify where customer information is stored, building a single inventory so you can respond quickly to requests and compliance checks.

OneTrust keeps records of your partners’ privacy and security practices regarding customer data, assisting with incident management by flagging you if something is off. For example, if you run a handmade jewelry shop and need to make sure your email marketing provider meets GDPR requirements, OneTrust tracks vendor compliance certifications and highlights any gaps, so you know your customer data is being handled properly. Or, if you run a coffee roasting business that ships nationwide, OneTrust logs how fulfillment partners encrypt addresses and payment details, helping ensure sensitive information stays protected at every step.

AI governance

AI is everywhere, including ecommerce and service businesses, influencing data privacy management. OneTrust’s AI governance features keep tabs on how artificial intelligence tools use your data, and tally them against laws like the EU AI Act while mitigating risk.

Say you own a home décor shop and use AI to write ad copy. With OneTrust, you could log the sources your AI tool is allowed to draw from—like product descriptions and approved images. This way you have documentation ready if questions come up about copyright or compliance.

Another example is a fitness studio that might use AI scheduling software, but health notes don’t feed into the model. OneTrust can document which data the AI tool doesn’t access. This can help you prove compliance with health privacy laws like HIPAA and reduce the risk of unintentional data misuse.

If you’re building your own AI tool—say, a chatbot to answer store FAQs—OneTrust can track what dataset it’s trained on, what permissions you have, and the risk checks you’ve done before launch. That means if regulators or customers ask how your AI chatbot was built and what it knows, you’ve got a clear, auditable paper trail.

Privacy automation

Managing data privacy manually, like chasing down customer requests, updating spreadsheets, and double-checking each vendor’s compliance records, takes a lot of time. A thorough risk assessment can streamline the process. OneTrust automates manual work like deletion requests, sensitive data flags, and retention rules so you can focus on running your business.

OneTrust could handle right-to-access requests via automation for a local cooking school, sending students their stored info without pulling staff off other work. An online boutique might set it to auto-delete payment info after 30 days to reduce breach risk.

For fast-growing stores, automating privacy workflows also means fewer delays when a customer asks for their data to be removed, even during a busy sales week.

Tech risk and compliance

The GRC & Security Assurance Cloud deals with security and risk. It brings policy management, risk assessments, and audit preparation into one place, giving small teams a single dashboard instead of juggling multiple spreadsheets or apps.

Instead of relying on scattered files, a retail business could use it to document that its payment processor complies with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) before launching a major sale.

An ecommerce shop owner who’s testing a new inventory app could run data privacy risk checks through the same dashboard. They could log results and flag any issues before the app goes live. In both cases, OneTrust provides the structure to capture evidence, track fixes, and keep an auditable record in one place.

Because these checks can pull data from vulnerability scanners, vendor records, and ticketing systems, you can see app vulnerabilities, vendor issues, and compliance status all at once. This can make it easier to prioritize fixes.

Data use governance

Data governance is about knowing where your customer information lives, who can open it, and what it’s used for, so you can track compliance progress. OneTrust automates a lot of this, tagging data and managing user consents while enforcing your rules automatically.

A pet supply business might let the marketing team see purchase histories for loyalty programs, but prevent exporting the data. A wedding photographer could give editors access to photos but keep personal client notes locked away.

If you’re using AI, you could mark certain datasets as safe for training and flag others as off limits. This ensures responsible use and avoids compliance problems later.

Pros and cons of using OneTrust

OneTrust combines privacy tools, risk logs, AI oversight, and consent tracking to manage your entire data estate. It also works with the apps and systems you may already use. Change a setting in one place—say a shopper’s email preference—and it automatically updates your mailing list, customer relationship management tool (CRM), and ad targeting without having to chase it down.

But not every business needs the whole toolkit. OneTrust pricing varies by company size and feature set, typically requiring a subscription. The cost may be hard to justify if you’re only using a few functions. If your only goal is to let customers tweak their preferences, you may not need or use the rest of the features. Consider training time for yourself and team members, if you don’t plan on using all features.