Trade body IAB Europe has partnered with IAB Tech Lab to launch the IAB Privacy Lab, a new service to help development of privacy, data protection, legal compliance, and self-regulation standards for national markets.
IAB Privacy Lab will serve National IABs in regions that have just adopted, or are contemplating, new privacy laws and who want to take a leadership role in this increasingly strategic domain.
It will enable these IABs to identify which consumer rights and company obligations their local laws require so they can be incorporated into local level standards and technology frameworks. Finally, it will offer support and guidance to IABs for consultations with corporate members, local regulators, and in the dialogue between legal & policy experts.
Commenting on the launch of the new IAB Privacy Lab, Dennis Buchheim President, IAB Tech Lab said “Through our collaboration on the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) for the GDPR (European General Data Protection Regulation), Tech Lab has developed a great working partnership with IAB Europe, creating a technical and policy framework that supports the digital advertising industry with standards for privacy and data protection legal compliance. The new IAB Privacy Lab will draw on the respective strengths of Tech Lab and IAB Europe, with Tech Lab leveraging its broad industry network of product leaders and engineers and its track record in creating global technical standards for digital advertising, and IAB Europe contributing its deep expertise in privacy policy and legal compliance. It’s a natural evolution of the work already being done, and we are excited to raise global standards in privacy with National IABs”.
The expectation is that in jurisdictions where the privacy laws are similar to GDPR, any new technical solutions and compliance solution will follow the technical specification of the TCF created by IAB Europe with technical support from Tech Lab. The Privacy Lab will also coordinate closely with IAB (U.S.) with respect to other jurisdictions that are different from GDPR. This reflects the diverse requirements and approaches of local jurisdictions to ensure National IABs can provide compliant industry technical solutions for members and the wider ecosystem.
Tech Lab is organizing to modularize its privacy and data protection technical specifications to enable global companies to integrate with a shared global foundation that can support distinct regional and national privacy laws and needs.
A pilot project is already underway to support the development of a “TCF Canada”, under the leadership of Sonia Carreno, IAB Canada CEO. “The enormous shifts towards privacy by design taking place in the industry are affecting all markets including Canada. As governments look for adequacy in legislation and compliance across borders, it is more critical than ever to build on existing, best in class standards. We are thrilled to partner with IAB Europe and IAB Tech Lab to leverage the successful TCF framework for Canada. This move will lay the foundation for privacy compliance in the context of digital advertising for years to come,” said Carreno about the initiative.
Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO, said, “IAB Privacy Lab is aimed at empowering local IABs and enabling us as a global network to take a leadership role on what is probably the industry’s most striking vulnerability at the moment, but also an enormous opportunity. We want it to be a smart, low-cost way of achieving efficiencies for our shared corporate members while respecting local differences and ensuring local IABs are at the heart of an important global conversation.”
