The UK's privacy authority warns adtech that the end of the tracking is near.

It's been a long time since the UK's Information Insurance Authority warned the industry's behavior that it's crazy.

ICO has never really stopped the exact error of the following and focuses on the industry mismanaging Internet clients' own information to try to control their considerations - not so much as to actually implement the law against guilty parties or end what computerized freedom campaigns have presented as the biggest information disruption ever.

In fact, it is sued for inaction before the real-time bidding's use of personal data by complainants who submitted a petition on the subject in September 2018.

But Britain's (outgoing) Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, issued a statement today warning the business that its old illegal technologies will not suffice in the future.

In order to preserve people's privacy online, new advertising methods must follow a set of "clear data protection criteria", she claims.

Denham offers the following "expectations" about data protection and privacy from next-generation Internet advertising technology:

• Include data protection rules in the initiative's architecture by default;

• allow consumers to opt out of advertising based on monitoring, profiling or targeting of personal data;

• be open about how and why personal data is handled throughout the ecosystem, as well as who is responsible for that processing;

• define the specific reasons for processing personal data and show how this is fair, legal and transparent;

• address existing privacy issues and reduce any new privacy risks introduced by their plan

Denham states that the purpose of the opinion is to provide "additional regulatory clarity" as new advertising technologies are developed, and she expresses her support for efforts aimed at:

• abandon current methods of internet tracking and profiling tactics;

• increase individual and organizational transparency;

• Eliminate current frictions in the online experience

• give consumers real control and choice over how device information and personal data are processed;

• ensure that a proper permit is obtained if necessary;

• ensure that there is a clear responsibility throughout the supply chain;

The timing of the ruling is important, given that the Belgian data protection authority is in the process of assessing an important technology for collecting licenses for the advertising industry. (In addition, the current UK data protection standards are based on the same basis as the rest of the EU, as the country transposed the General Data Protection Regulation into national law before Brexit.)

IAB Europe warned earlier this month that it expects to be found in breach of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and that its so-called "transparency and consent" framework (TCF) has failed to achieve any of the targets set out in the tin.

However, this is simply ICO's latest "reform" message to rule-breaking adtech.

And Denham only repeats obligations arising from standards already in place in British law - requirements that would not need to be repeated if her agency actively enforces the law against adtech infringers. However, it is the regulatory dance she prefers.

This latest ICO salvo seems to be an effort by the active magistrate to secure credit for wider industry shifts as she plans to leave office, such as Google's slow transition to phasing out support for third-party cookies (aka, its proposal). to "Privacy Sandbox", which is actually a response to evolving web standards such as competing browsers that bake in privacy protection, increasing consumer concerns about online tracking and data breaches, and a significant increase in certification

Denham could have taken meaningful enforcement action a long time ago if she had wanted to.

Instead, the ICO has chosen to give only a limited opinion on the embedded adtech's chronic compliance issue. And ultimately to wait and hope for future compliance while the intrusion continues.

Regardless of regulatory inertia, change may be on the way.

What's more, strikingly enough, Google's "Protection Sandbox" proposal (which claims that "secure" marketing focuses on companions to clients, rather than microtargeting of individual web users) gets a significant call in ICO's comments - with Denham's office writing in a press release that it is: "Currently, one of the most important proposals in the online advertising space is Google Privacy Sandbox, which expects to replace the use of outside goodies with

"ICO has worked with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to examine how Google's arrangements will protect people's personal data while supporting the CMA's mission to ensure competition in digital markets," the ICO continues, nodding to ongoing regulatory oversight, led by The UK's competition watchdog, which has the power to prevent Google's Privacy Sandbox from ever being implemented - and thus prevent Google from phasing out support for it.

As a result, this statement also alludes to a weakening of the ICO's own regulatory authority in an important adtech-related domain - one of market reform scope and imports.

The story is that the British government has handled a competition change that will incorporate tailor-made guidelines for stage giants that are considered to have "strategic market status" (and thus the power to harm digital competition), with a dedicated Digital Markets Unit already established and operational within the CMA to lead the work (but still waiting to be empowered by forthcoming UK legislation).

So in our computer-driven digital world, the question of what happens to "old school" regulatory silos (and narrowly focused regulatory specialties) is crucial.

Increased cooperation between regulators such as the ICO and the CMA can lead to even more converged or even merged supervision - to ensure that powerful digital technology does not fall through regulatory cracks - and thus that the ball is not dropped as spectacularly on critical issues as ad tracking in the future .

Intersectional digital surveillance, anyone?

As for the ICO, there is another significant warning that Denham is not only on the way out (hence her "opinion" has a limited shelf life), but the UK government is now consulting on "reforms" of UK data protection law.

If ministers, who seem to be more interested in empty soundbites (about removing barriers to "innovation"), stop waiving legal requirements to ask Internet users for consent to do things like track and profile them in the first place, like some of the proposals suggests, said reforms may result in a significant downgrade of domestic integrity and data protection; and even legitimize unauthorized ad tracking.

As a result, Britain's next Information Commissioner, John Edwards, may need to apply a completely different set of "data regulations".

And, if that is the case, Denham will have contributed in a circulating way to the implementation of sliding standards.