Dr Johnny Ryan

Belgium’s Court of Appeal yesterday ruled on an appeal brought by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe against an earlier finding by the Belgian data protection authority.

That finding from 2022 followed complaints submitted by a group of privacy campaigners led by Dr Johnny Ryan, director of the Enforce unit at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL).

The key issue in the case was the “Transparency & Consent Framework” (TCF), which is widely relied upon by tech companies to obtain consent from web users for tracking them in order to show them targeted ads through the system known as real-time bidding (RTB).

Welcoming the Belgian court ruling, Dr Ryan said: “Today’s court’s decision shows that the consent system used by Google, Amazon, X, Microsoft, deceives hundreds of millions of Europeans.

“The tech industry has sought to hide its vast data breach behind sham consent popups. Tech companies turned the GDPR into a daily nuisance rather than a shield for people.”

He added: “This decision is momentous. It creates a clear need for industry to innovate and move away from the dangerous, ineffective, and fraud-riddled tracking-based advertising.

“RTB can operate without personal data. This decision shows that it must. This is good news for every person online, and for publishers, too.”

The privacy campaigners were represented in the proceedings by Frederic Debusseré and Ruben Roex of Belgian law firm Timelex.