Consent Management
Consent management is the capture, storage and enforcement of a user's consent to specific data processing and communications, with a record of what they were shown and when, so that an organization can prove it under laws such as the GDPR. A consent management platform (CMP) is the software that does it. GDPR Article 7 requires the controller to be able to demonstrate consent and to make withdrawal as easy as giving it, and Article 4(11) defines consent as a "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous" indication of the data subject's wishes.
| Type | What it manages | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie consent CMP | Consent banner choices for cookies and trackers on a website | Front end, tag manager |
| Identity-level consent and preferences | Per-purpose consent tied to an account, across channels and devices | CIAM profile or a dedicated consent service |
| OAuth consent | A user letting a third-party app access their data with given scopes | Authorization server; abused in consent phishing |
Consent is a data problem disguised as a UI problem. The regulator's question is not whether a checkbox existed but whether you can produce, for a given user and a given moment, what they were shown and what they agreed to. That means versioned consent records tied to policy text, not a boolean column. Under eIDAS 2.0 the wallet model pushes consent further toward the holder, so verifiers request specific attributes rather than receiving a profile.
See also: GDPR, what is CIAM, selective disclosure, identity regulations by country
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