Sidekick's What Just Shipped

HubSpot has a forms beta that manages legal basis for data processing and marketing communication consent separately.

Show Notes

HubSpot has a forms beta that manages legal basis for data processing and marketing communication consent separately. We cover what HubSpot documents today: the Data Privacy field and its notice and consent options (implicit processing consent, separate consents, and legitimate interest), what gets written to the contact record, why form consent covers marketing email but not SMS, how default text changes reach existing forms, and how the beta changes conditional logic. First thing to try: open one form, check which notice and consent option it uses, and confirm every checkbox maps to the right subscription type.

Who it's for: marketing ops, demand gen, and HubSpot admins who collect consent from contacts in regions with data privacy rules (forms are listed for all products and plans; conditional logic needs Marketing Hub or Content Hub Professional or Enterprise). HubSpot says your legal team is the best resource for compliance advice.

Our research first covered this on October 28, 2026. Here's where it stands as of our Oct 31, 2026 check. Our write-up describes a redesigned Privacy and Consent section with separate panels on all hubs and tiers, and says conditional logic can show or hide the Store and process data and Privacy policy fields. HubSpot's forms article (updated Oct 28, 2026) names this as a beta, Configure, separately manage legal basis for data processing and marketing communication consent, and says conditional logic cannot be applied to data privacy elements, or in the beta to email consent or legacy data privacy elements. We couldn't confirm the panel layout or conditional logic on those privacy fields.

In this episode
  • 00:00:00 The beta and today's consent options
  • 00:02:24 Contact records, SMS, and defaults
  • 00:04:53 Conditional logic, legal, and a plan
Sources
More HubSpot updates
Every HubSpot update we cover lives at Sidekick Strategies HubSpot Updates.

AI disclosure: Rob and Dana are AI hosts with AI-generated voices. The narrator and music are AI-generated. The mid-roll from George B. Thomas uses an AI clone of his voice, made with his consent. Reviewed by humans before release.
This episode includes a short message from Sidekick Strategies, the show's presenter and a HubSpot Solutions Partner.

Sidekick's What Just Shipped is independent of HubSpot, Inc., and is not authorized by, endorsed by, sponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise approved by HubSpot, Inc.

What is Sidekick's What Just Shipped?

Sidekick's What Just Shipped is the fast, friendly way to keep up with HubSpot without reading every release note yourself. Each episode, AI hosts Rob and Dana take one feature HubSpot shipped and tell you where it stands right now: what changed, how it got here, who it's for, and what to do on Monday. Rob explains. Dana pushes back. Nobody pretends.

Every episode starts from Sidekick Strategies research on the HubSpot Updates page at sidekickstrategies.com and is checked against official HubSpot sources. If something isn't confirmed, the hosts say so out loud. Episodes run six to eight minutes, and new ones arrive five a week while we catch up on recent releases.

Presented by Sidekick Strategies, a HubSpot solutions partner.

AI disclosure: Rob and Dana are AI hosts with AI-generated voices. The narrator voice and the music are AI-generated. The mid-episode message from Sidekick Strategies founder George B. Thomas uses an AI clone of his own voice, made with his consent. Scripts are researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by humans before release.

Sidekick's What Just Shipped is independent of HubSpot, Inc., and is not authorized by, endorsed by, sponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise approved by HubSpot, Inc. HubSpot is a trademark of HubSpot, Inc.

Rob (AI host): Your form asks for permission to process data and permission to email, and those are different permissions.
Dana (AI host): HubSpot now has a forms beta that keeps legal basis and email consent apart.
Rob (AI host): Before you rebuild a single form, a few rules decide what visitors actually see.
Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies.
Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI.
Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you.
Rob (AI host): It's Rob, Dana's beside me, and we're both AI hosts.
Rob (AI host): Today: forms that separate legal basis from marketing consent, checked against HubSpot's forms help as of late October.
Dana (AI host): Happy to, and today I'm playing a hypothetical demand gen lead with contacts in the EU and Canada.
Rob (AI host): Great.
Rob (AI host): Why it matters: legal basis and email consent are separate records in HubSpot, so your form should collect each one deliberately.
Dana (AI host): First, what is the beta called?
Rob (AI host): HubSpot's forms article names it: Configure, separately manage legal basis for data processing and marketing communication consent.
Dana (AI host): That's a mouthful.
Rob (AI host): It is. Forms themselves are listed for all products and plans.
Dana (AI host): What do I need to edit a form?
Rob (AI host): Edit forms permissions.
Dana (AI host): Where does the consent piece live on a form today?
Rob (AI host): Go to Marketing, then Forms, and edit a form.
Rob (AI host): Click the add icon, choose Other, and drag the Data Privacy field onto the form.
Dana (AI host): Then I pick how permissions get recorded?
Rob (AI host): Right.
Rob (AI host): In the dropdown called How do you want to record permissions from your contact, you choose a notice and consent option.
Dana (AI host): What are the options?
Rob (AI host): Implicit processing consent with individual checkboxes for communications. Separate consents, with individual checkboxes per consent.
Rob (AI host): Or legitimate interest.
Dana (AI host): Walk me through separate consents.
Rob (AI host): Processing consent is explicit.
Rob (AI host): Visitors must check the consent to process data box, or they cannot submit the form.
Dana (AI host): And the email checkbox?
Rob (AI host): Optional.
Rob (AI host): If they skip it, the submission still goes through, but they are not subscribed to anything.
Dana (AI host): Can I pre-check it?
Rob (AI host): No. HubSpot does not allow pre-selecting the consent to communicate checkbox.
Dana (AI host): Can I add a privacy policy line?
Rob (AI host): Yes.
Rob (AI host): In the field settings, select the Include Privacy Policy statement checkbox, and the statement shows on the form.
Dana (AI host): What gets written to the contact record?
Rob (AI host): With notice and consent on the form, the Legal basis for processing contact's data property is set to Freely given consent from contact.
Rob (AI host): The communication consent shows in the subscriptions section.
Dana (AI host): What other values can that property hold?
Rob (AI host): Six defaults. Three legitimate interest types, for leads, customers, and other.
Rob (AI host): Then performance of a contract, freely given consent, and not applicable.
Dana (AI host): When is not applicable the right pick?
Rob (AI host): When no legal reason is needed to contact someone, for example, a contact who is not an EU or UK citizen covered by GDPR.
Dana (AI host): And with implicit consent?
Rob (AI host): Processing consent is collected when the visitor clicks submit.
Rob (AI host): The email checkbox still needs an affirmative opt-in.
Dana (AI host): And legitimate interest?
Rob (AI host): Visitors see a notice that you need their information to contact them about your products and services, and that they can unsubscribe at any time.
Rob (AI host): No consent is required.
Dana (AI host): How do I map the email checkboxes?
Rob (AI host): Under What consents do you want to collect, map each checkbox to a marketing email subscription type.
Rob (AI host): Click Add another subscription to offer more than one.
Dana (AI host): And when a visitor checks one?
Rob (AI host): They are subscribed to that communication.
Dana (AI host): Does this cover SMS?
Rob (AI host): No. Collecting consent through a form only works for marketing emails, not SMS messages.
Dana (AI host): That stings a little.
Rob (AI host): Default text changes have a catch too.
Dana (AI host): What catch?
Rob (AI host): New default text in Privacy and consent settings only applies to new forms.
Rob (AI host): To update an existing form, delete its Data privacy options field and re-add it.
Dana (AI host): Does that default text cover pop-up forms?
Rob (AI host): It does, for both forms and pop-up forms, and it applies to all subscription types.
Dana (AI host): And turning on data privacy settings?
Rob (AI host): Then all data privacy checkboxes on new forms become mandatory.
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies.
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission.
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Is every email campaign a copy of the last one, because nobody knows how to build from scratch?
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Sidekick's Marketing Hub training happens live, inside the HubSpot account your team already uses, with role-based sessions, and every session is recorded for your team.
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Real work, not a demo.
George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Sign your team up for Marketing Hub Training at Sidekick Strategies dot com.
Dana (AI host): Skeptic question.
Dana (AI host): Our research says this beta adds a Privacy and Consent section with separate panels, on all hubs and tiers.
Dana (AI host): What does HubSpot document?
Rob (AI host): The beta's name, and how it changes conditional logic.
Rob (AI host): The panel layout itself is not in HubSpot's forms articles.
Dana (AI host): Our research also says conditional logic can show or hide the Store and process data and Privacy policy fields on Professional or Enterprise.
Rob (AI host): Here's what we couldn't confirm: that conditional logic works on those privacy fields.
Rob (AI host): HubSpot says conditional logic cannot be applied to data privacy elements, and in this beta, not to email consent or legacy data privacy elements either.
Dana (AI host): So conditional logic is off the table for consent.
Rob (AI host): For those elements, yes.
Rob (AI host): Conditional logic elsewhere on the form needs Marketing Hub or Content Hub Professional or Enterprise.
Dana (AI host): Anything else that changes?
Rob (AI host): You cannot clone a form step that includes a data privacy field.
Dana (AI host): So build the consent step once and leave it be.
Rob (AI host): That is the safer read.
Rob (AI host): If you need a copy, rebuild that step by hand and add the Data Privacy field again.
Dana (AI host): And who should sign off?
Rob (AI host): HubSpot says your legal team is the best resource for compliance advice on your specific situation.
Dana (AI host): Here's how this week goes, then.
Dana (AI host): Monday, sit down with your legal team and list which regions need explicit processing consent.
Rob (AI host): Next, pick the notice and consent option per form, and map every checkbox to the right marketing email subscription type, one form at a time.
Dana (AI host): Then re-add the Data privacy options field on older forms if you changed the default text.
Rob (AI host): And preview each form before publishing, so you can test how the consent checkboxes appear and behave for visitors.
Dana (AI host): Demand gen verdict: use separate consents where you need explicit processing consent, legitimate interest only where legal approves, and keep conditional logic away from consent fields.
Rob (AI host): Separate the asks, keep the records.
Dana (AI host): Sources sit in the show notes, and more HubSpot updates wait at Sidekick Strategies dot com.
Rob (AI host): Thanks for listening all the way through.
Dana (AI host): Map every checkbox before you publish.
Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music.
Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.