Determining consent for an action using a consent policy reflecting an interpretation of applicable data privacy laws

A method for using consent policies to determine whether to proceed with actions relative to persons based on a hierarchy of consent values for that person, the hierarchy including a first level involving consent values for persons and a second level involving consent values for actions, the method comprising:

• responsive to a query in which an identifier and an action are provided, retrieving a corresponding plurality of records which include a first and second record each associated with a consent value respectively relating to the action and to a person, wherein the consent value, the action, and the person pertain to the person's consent for another entity to perform the action in view of data privacy laws;
• selecting from a plurality of consent policies a currently selected consent policy based on a current set of one or more criteria, wherein each of the plurality of consent policies includes a first and second plurality of rules that each include a condition and that are configurable to reflect a manner to comply with data privacy laws based on a determination of which data privacy laws of which jurisdictions apply and an interpretation of those data privacy laws;
• applying the currently selected consent policy to the plurality of records to determine whether to proceed with the action, the applying comprising:
• applying the first plurality of rules in order of priority to find a rule based on the condition of the rule being met by the consent value relating to the action in the first record, wherein the rule identifies a result for the second level of the hierarchy;
• determining a result for the first level of the hierarchy using the consent value associated with the second record;
• applying the second plurality of rules in order of priority to find another rule based on respective conditions of the another rule being met by the result for the first and second levels of the hierarchy, wherein the another rule identifies whether to proceed with the action relative to the person;
• and
• responsive to applying the second plurality of rules, responding to the query with a determination of whether to proceed with the action relative to the person.