Informed Consent

The Leadership Position

Advertising will be more effective, and rebuild trust, if we demonstrate respect for people by engaging them in the ‘value exchange’ between advertising load, environment, privacy and content, respecting their user experience, and promoting informed consent.

Clarity, choice and control around how personal data will be used, what people receive in return, and options for users to tailor their online experience are essential to re-building trust.

Offer user-friendly tools, functions and features that ensure informed consent and empower people to easily control their own online experience, allowing greater choice and providing informed consent over the content they see and how and where their data are used. This will help develop long-lasting relationships based on trust and a clear value exchange, supported by data.

“Individuals frequently have little control over how their personal data are used, or over algorithmic content personalized by large technology companies, and face obstacles from information providers to understanding and accessing the criteria and mechanisms used by them in prioritizing and promoting specific types of content.”  
United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity, 2024

The Commercial Impact

“If people want to truly understand the value of trust in advertising to them, it is best described as results, regulation and recruitment, or the ‘3R’s of Trust’. When it comes to results, trust in brands and trust in advertising media increases profits and overall effectiveness.”
Dan Wilks, Credos

• Trust is the second most important as a driver of brand effectiveness and financial performance.

• 21% of internet users across nearly 60 countries regularly use an ad-blocker while a further one in ten use them occasionally.

• 60% of consumers believe their personal data is routinely misused by companies leading to a lack of trust in advertising.

• 85% of consumers think it is important to know a company’s data privacy policy and 72% a company’s AI policies before making a purchase.

Taking Action: Three Essential Steps

This Guide is designed to be used alongside the CAN Guiding Principles. Please complete the Principles before implementing Guides.

1. Data, Respect and Transparency

• View General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as the legal standard, but follow best practice, including:
  • • The World Federation of Advertisers Data Transparency Manifesto.
    • Mozilla Data Privacy Principles.
    • The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) checklist for best practices when devising consent strategies.

• Employ data minimisation practices by:
  • • Encouraging partners, suppliers, and vendors to establish a programme of frequent, thorough audits to determine the data you need and do not need to collect.
    • Only collect and store data for which there is a valid and legitimate business reason, and risk assess all processes for unintended negative consequences.
    • Actively remove data which is not needed.

• Ask platforms, vendors suppliers and media owners about:
  • • How they collect data.
    • What data they collect.
    • Why they collect it.
    • Highlight any non-compliance and report to a legal or compliance officer internally and/or to regulatory authorities if necessary.
      
• Ensure that the collection, use, sharing, sale and storage of data respects the privacy of users and that users can easily access information on:
  • • • • How their personal data are harnessed, including for algorithmic decisions.
        • How their personal data are shared with and obtained from other entities.
        • Why you need it and where you will store it and transfer it to.
          • • See the ICO “Your beginner’s guide to data protection”.

• Ensure privacy notices and consent mechanisms are clear and concise, and designed to allow people to have more control over what and when data is collected about them.
  • • See the ICO “How to write a privacy notice and what goes in it”.

• Special category data comes with extra protections under GDPR. Assess whether any collection of this data is necessary and that you have undergone appropriate due diligence to reduce any risk to individual or the organisation.
• Continuously improve processes, including using ‘opt in’ data or ad formats where possible.

• Co-create new ad formats and consent methodologies with customer input.

2. User Experience

• Choose platforms and publishers which create respectful experiences for people.

• Focus media planning and strategy on prioritising quality of reach and better targeting, over metrics based on quantitative reach.

• Establish a contact strategy that determines the frequency messages are delivered to people, and where.
  • • See the Data & Marketing Association’s “Carrying out a compliant contact strategy”.
      

• Develop a first party data strategy that has a privacy-first approach, focusing on gathering quality data.

• Use alternatives to hyper-targeting and behavioural advertising such as interest-based or contextual advertising, while being aware of their own limitations. Consider developing non-tracking affiliate partnerships where possible.

• Clearly mark ads and seamlessly coexist with content where possible.
• Use ad experiences that do not interrupt, distract, or prevent personal control.
  • • Ensure ad formats comply with the Coalition for Better Ads criteria as a minimum and preferably the Acceptable Ads criteria.
    • Use ad formats that minimise the load time of websites and are compliant with the Interactive Advertising Bureau Lean Standard.

3. Emerging Technologies

• Sense-check the use of emerging technologies such as AI and assess for unintended consequences.
• Use technology appropriately- some AI based technologies, such as those relying on stored biometric data and facial recognition, are not appropriate to be used for advertising purposes.
• Ask platforms, suppliers, partners and vendors for ethical evaluations of new technologies, and ask if they monitor impacts over time to identify ‘unknown unknowns’.
  • • E.g. anti-slavery policies, anti-weapons, anti-genocide.
• Embed a culture of data ethics in the organisation:
  • • Develop a checklist to evaluate your use of data and technology.
    • Consider making data ethics a key metric, using frameworks such as the Open Data Institute Data Ethics canvas to help.
• Train your team on the issues of algorithmic bias, data ethics, and unintended consequences, such as those on information integrity.
• Address and publicly communicate the implications of any innovations or advancements that may present risks to people, the environment, or the information ecosystem.
  • • This could include the malicious uses of AI technologies, overreliance on AI technology without human oversight and any related potential for further erosion of trust across geographies and societal contexts.
• Ask suppliers, partners and vendors:
  • • How they measure, conform and correct bias.
    • If their AI is causing any discrimination under the characteristics in Article 2 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.