IAB Tech Lab, in partnership with IAB Europe, continues to advance and enhance the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) to address the evolving expectations of users, regulators, and registered framework participants. This update includes removal of a legacy workaround that is no longer needed as well as improves TCF UI requirements to ensure better user understanding of features and special purposes. Comments may be submitted by email support@iabtechlab.com or as comments on the pull request on GitHub. The public comment period is open until June 29th, 2026.
Removal of Special Purposes Legitimate Interest Workaround
With the release of TCF v2.3, the disclosedVendors segment became a mandatory part of the TC string. This change resolved earlier ambiguity for certain vendors on whether they were disclosed to users when pursuing Legitimate Interest for Special Purposes. The specification currently includes a workaround requiring CMPs to set the Legitimate Interest (LI) bit to 1 for vendors declaring only Special Purposes. This update removes the requirement that Special Purpose-only vendors be represented in the Vendor Legitimate Interest section of the TC string. Vendors declaring only Special Purposes will understand if they were disclosed to the user by reading the mandatory disclosedVendors segment, and the Vendor Legitimate Interest portion of the string will only include vendors with legitimate interest disclosures.
Introduction of Standard Texts for Features
One of the forthcoming updates to the TCF Policies focuses on continuing to improve user understanding. Recurring feedback received is that users don’t always grasp the difference between purposes and features and why there is no user control associated with the latter. To address this, CMPs will be required under TCF Policy version 5.0.b to display the standard feature explanations text alongside their standard name and their full standard user-friendly text in the UI. This standard text will be included in the GVL and corresponding translations. Importantly, the updated GVL specification does not introduce any new requirements for vendors.
An example of the updated GVL with new standardTexts object:
Key Dates to Keep In Mind
- 29 June 2026: Public comment period is open until June 19th, 2026. Confirmed timeline is communicated shortly after.
- Mid-July 2026: updates to GVL and translations with the new standardTexts object and features illustrations.
- Mid-October 2026: deadline for CMPs to implement new disclosures in their UIs in the web environment. The exact date will be confirmed once the GVL and corresponding translations are updated
- Mid-February 2027: deadline for CMPs to implement new disclosures in their UIs in native app environments (mobile & CTV). The exact date will be confirmed once the GVL and corresponding translations are updated.
Additional Resources
- Learn more about the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF)
- Read the technical specifications
- IAB Europe issues notifications to TCF participants when there are updates. These notifications are also published on official channels
Julien Delhommeau
Chief Operating Officer
Utiq