consentcan

ConsentCan is a concept in privacy engineering that proposes a standardized, portable representation of user consent decisions to facilitate cross-service data sharing while preserving user control. It is described as a compact data object or token that can be attached to data assets or transmitted alongside data transfers, allowing recipient systems to enforce the user’s choices without re-prompting for consent.

The core idea of ConsentCan is to encode consent in a machine-readable form that captures essential attributes such as data categories, purposes, scope, duration, revocation status, and the issuing authority. A ConsentCan record would be versioned, auditable, and cryptographically verifiable, enabling traceability of decisions and changes over time. By design, it aims to enable interoperability among different consent management platforms and data controllers, supporting automated enforcement of user preferences across complex data ecosystems, including analytics, advertising, and third-party data sharing.

Advocates for ConsentCan emphasize its potential to improve compliance with data protection laws by providing a clear, portable record of consent that can travel with data and be audited by regulators. It is often discussed in conjunction with privacy-by-design practices, data governance frameworks, and standardized consent schemas. Adoption would require alignment with existing legal requirements, robust security protections, and broad industry coordination among platforms, CMPs, and data processors.

Limitations and challenges include achieving widespread interoperability, ensuring real-time revocation propagation, addressing security risks, and preventing user fatigue from excessive prompts. See also: consent management, data governance, privacy by design, GDPR, data subject rights.