IAB TCF 2.2: What Are the Changes?

IAB Tech Lab, in partnership with IAB Europe, will release IAB TCF 2.2 in mid-May 2023. It is an improved version of IAB TCF 2.0/2.1, and it comes with several changes and enhancements.

IAB TCF 2.2: What Are the Changes?

Timeline of IAB TCF 2.2

1. Mid-May 2023 - IAB TCF 2.2 will be released.
2. June 30th – Deadline for vendors to update registration.
3. September 30th – Deadline for supporting v2.2.

Major changes in IAB TCF 2.2

Legitimate Interest will No Longer be an Acceptable Legal Basis for Purposes 3-6

Purposes 3 (Create a personalized ads profile), 4 (Select personalized ads), 5 (Create a personalized content profile), and 6 (Select personalized content) will no longer be allowed as legitimate interest legal basis.

New User-facing Standard Texts

The purpose names and descriptions will be changed and improved to be more user-friendly.

New Features of Processing

Vendors will be able to declare additional features at registration level.

Standardization of the Additional Information About Vendors

Vendors will now be required to provide additional information about their data processing operation at registration level.

Standardization of the Categories of Data Collected and Processed by Vendors

The new TCF policies will include a standard taxonomy of categories of data, from which a vendor can select at registration level.

Standardization of Vendors' Data Retention Periods

It will be required to disclose on the first layer of the CMP UI the number of third-party vendors that are seeking consent or pursue data processing purposes on the basis of their legitimate interests.

Greater Transparency for Users About the Number of Vendors

It will be required to disclose on the first layer of the CMP UI the number of third-party Vendors that are seeking consent or pursue data processing purposes on the basis of their legitimate interests.

Requirement About Users' Withdrawal of Their Consent

It will be required to ensure that users can re-access the CMP UI easily to manage their choices.

For vendors:

In the web environment, vendors with access to Javascript will be required to register an event listener function (addEventListener) instead of using the getTCData command of the TCF API. In the app environment, vendors must listen to IABTCF_* key updates to retrieve TC Strings from NSUserDefaults (iOS) or SharedPreferences (Android).

Enhanced TCF Compliance Programmes

IAB Europe will increase the volume of proactive auditing of CMPs and vendors that will be randomly selected each month. They will also act upon reports of non-compliance from the market or from end-users by making available a dedicated form to submit a complaint.

IAB TCF 2.2 specifications and API changes

TCF Policy Version Changed to Be 4

Legitimate Interest Legal Basis for Purposes 3-6 is Not Allowed

TC Strings created under v2.2 must not include positive legitimate interest signals for these purposes in the core string.

The getTCData command is deprecated in version 2.2

Vendors must rely on event listeners to get the TC string and listen for the changes.

Example:

<script type="text/javascript">
  __tcfapi('addEventListener', 2, function (tcData, success) {
    if (success) {
      console.log(tcData)
    }
  })
</script>

Global Vendor List (GVL) changes

1. GVL version is going to be incremented to version 3
2. descriptionLegal field is replaced by illustrations field
3. New dataCategories field declared by vendors
4. New dataRetention field declared by vendors
5. urls field allow multiple languages

Looking to support IAB TCF 2.2

Publishers can enable IAB TCF 2.2 in a consent management platform like UniConsent, which offers consumers full control of data collection, opt-out features, and preferences communication. UniConsent is a leading consent management platform for GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, and LGPD, GPP compliance. The UniConsent GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, LGPD, GPP Compliance Solution Privacy Manager simplifies global privacy regulations compliance.

References

• Understanding the Upcoming Transparency & Consent Framework V2.2
• TCF V2.2 IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

About UniConsent

UniConsent is a part of Transfon User Experience Platform, serving tens of millions of users per day to provide a seamless experience for both users and publishers in the age of post-GDPR. Behind Transfon are a group of performance and user experience experts.

Contact us to know more: hello@uniconsent.com