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The Problem We're Solving

Today, privacy is so complicated that no one can truly understand their online privacy or security status. Services rely on dense terms and conditions with opt-in policies that change without notice. Every platform uses custom privacy frameworks, making it impossible for individuals to know what their actual privacy protections are—or to protect themselves effectively.

This complexity causes real harm: physical, mental, social, and economic impacts that could be prevented with proper transparency.

A New Approach: Transparency By Default

The Global Digital Transparency Alliance (GDTA) is forming a Transparency By Default Task Force to advance digital transparency and consent enforcement using a "glass-boxed" governance model.

Unlike today's opaque "black box" practices, the GDTA approach makes privacy states visible and verifiable before data processing occurs. This creates a transparent, machine-readable record of processing activities that individuals can actually understand—and that regulators can effectively enforce.

What the Task Force Will Do

We're bringing together regulators, platforms, privacy professionals, and standards contributors to:

• Develop implementation guidance for transparency-by-default practices

• Create enforcement tooling for privacy rules using digital transparency registries

• Pilot glass-boxed transparency with regulatory innovation partners

• Advance standards adoption for consent records and transparency performance indicators

• Build a trust registry that makes transparency verifiable across jurisdictions

Who Should Join

We're calling for interest from:

• Regulators and supervisory authorities – seeking practical enforcement tools

• Platform and service providers – needing consent provenance and compliance infrastructure

• Privacy officers and professionals – implementing transparency-by-design

• Standards contributors – advancing interoperable transparency frameworks

You'll select your role and level of participation when you sign up.

Law is Code, with International Standards

The GDTA transparency model is grounded in authoritative international treaties and open standards:

• Council of Europe - Convention 108+   authoritative international privacy treaty  for international governance

• ISO/IEC 29100 – security and privacy framework defining roles and obligations

• ISO/IEC 27560 – consent record information structure (ANCR profile)

• W3C Data Privacy Vocabulary – machine-readable legal and processing semantics

• ISO/IEC 29184 – online privacy notices and consent (under revision)

These standards enable a common transparency language that works as a digital governance bridge across borders, platforms, and regulatory regimes. (Lingua franca​​)​