Global mergers, acquisitions and strategic investments are at a record high, and this significant uptick in transactional activity is taking place in an environment where privacy, data protection and cybersecurity laws and standards are rapidly expanding. A target company’s non-compliance with privacy and cybersecurity responsibilities can undermine its financial valuation, as well as its ability to complete a successful sale, an initial public offering or another strategic transaction. In this two-part guest article series, Sidley Austin attorneys Sujit Raman, Sharon Flanagan, Michael R. Roberts and Francesca Blythe examine U.S., U.K. and E.U. regulatory trends in four key emerging technology sectors that recently have seen vastly increasing amounts of transactional activity. In this first part, they outline key issues for stakeholders to consider when evaluating the privacy, data protection and cybersecurity risk profiles of target companies in artificial intelligence and education technology transactions. Part two will address biometrics, as well as financial technology and cryptocurrency transactions. See “Privacy and Cyber Due Diligence in M&A Transactions” (Mar. 11, 2020).