What can the industry expect from the ICO in 2025?

At the end of January, the ICO released a number of updates on work it will be pursuing in 2025, including a new online tracking strategy and new guidance or ‘consent or pay’ models. Overall, the regulator’s priorities for the year ahead include: 

• Encouraging adoption of more ‘privacy-friendly’ online advertising models
• Supporting compliant deployment of ‘consent or pay’ models and supporting their economic viability 

• Investigating potential DMP non-compliance, with a particular focus on consent withdrawal, following the completion of the audit process in 2024 that followed the ‘Update report into adtech and real time bidding’
• Ensuring meaningful user control by continuing work on cookie consent enforcement and engaging with CMPs to ensure their functionality supports compliance
• Addressing tracking on apps and connected TVs via new ‘Internet of Things’ guidance 
• Providing clarity on legal requirements including final guidance on cookies once the Data Bill is law and working with the industry to develop a certification scheme to enable organisations to show they are processing personal information in compliance with the law

What it means for IAB members

In short, there are a number areas of focus that IAB UK members need to be aware of and - as the ICO’s work moves to encompass areas such as CTV tracking - it’s possible that members who aren’t regularly engaged with the regulator will need to input to and adhere to new guidance. 

The most pressing development from a timing point of view, is that the ICO is currently consulting on the draft version of revised guidance for ‘storage & access’ technologies (i.e. cookies and other technologies used to store or access information on devices). The consultation launched just before Christmas and closes on Friday 14 March. We are working with our members to review it and respond over the next month, so please get in touch if you would like to be part of this process. 

When it comes to the new guidance on ‘consent or pay’ models, the ICO is planning industry engagement and we’re currently in touch with the relevant team there to find out more about what this will entail. We’ll share more details once we have them. 

Meanwhile, two areas of the ICO’s work are in the very early stages and, while industry input will be needed on guidance and frameworks at some point, we are still awaiting further details about the ICO’s planned activity and how they will be involving members. This applies to the ICO’s review of legislative barriers to identify potential ways of enabling alternative advertising models for monetising non-consented audiences, as well as new guidance for tracking via ‘the Internet of Things’ (including connected TVs). 

To find out more, we have invited the ICO’s Stephen Almond  - Executive Director of Regulatory Risk - to brief IAB members about the ICO’s priorities and work on online advertising for 2025 to help the industry understand where it will have the opportunity to feed into developments and what to expect over the course of the year. We are yet to have agreed timings for this but we will confirm as soon as possible. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact [email protected]. Getting involved with the IAB Policy Community is the best way to stay up-to-date with all of our policy priorities, including the latest developments from the ICO.