BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - 14th May 2025: IAB Europe welcomes the ruling handed down today by the Belgian Market Court (part of the Brussels Court of Appeal) in connection with IAB Europe’s appeal of the February 2022 decision by the Belgian Data Protection Authority (APD) on IAB Europe and the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) v2.0.
In its ruling, the Market Court has annulled the APD February 2022 decision, building upon its September 2022 interim ruling that had established procedural irregularities, notably the fact that the APD failed to adequately justify why it considered TC Strings as personal data. The Market Court has rejected the APD’s view that IAB Europe is a joint controller together with TCF participants for their own respective processing of personal data, for instance for the purpose of digital advertising - in line with the perspective adopted by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in its judgment of 7 March 2024.
The Market Court upheld only part of the APD decision, namely that IAB Europe is a joint controller together with TCF participants solely in relation to the creation and use of TC Strings by publishers and vendors.
The corresponding changes to the TCF in order to accommodate this limited controllership have already been proposed as part of the action plan submitted to and validated by the APD in 2023, whose execution remains suspended. They could therefore be effected quickly to ensure compliance with the Market Court’s ruling. IAB Europe will continue to keep the market updated on the case and the further development of the Framework.
“This decision builds upon the CJEU’s reasoning that IAB Europe should not be viewed as a joint controller together with TCF participants in relation to subsequent data processing, so anything other than the processing of TC Strings. This is a position welcomed by IAB Europe" commented Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe. "We hope that this will signal the time to return to a meaningful and constructive dialogue with regulators that addresses technical and practical realities. Only that will allow us all to put in place workable and useful evolutions to the TCF that will benefit both users and TCF participants.”
An updated FAQ on the case may be consulted on IAB Europe's website here.
Media Contacts
Please contact Ninon Vagner, Privacy Director, IAB Europe (vagner@iabeurope.eu) and Helen Mussard, CMO, IAB Europe (mussard@iabeurope.eu).
