Consent String Decoder: FAQ

What is this site?

With the introduction of the GDPR and CCPA, marketers and advertisers have widely adopted IAB standards to communicate user consent and permission preferences. This is a simple site intended to make it easier to troubleshoot and debug consent strings.

---

How do I obtain a consent string?

You may already have a consent string handy. If not, you'll need to visit a website with running a Consent Management Platform (CMP), open Developer Tools, and enter the following:

        __tcfapi('getTCData', 2, (tcData, success) => {
          if(success) {
            console.log('Consent string is '+ tcData.tcString);
          } else {
            console.log('Issue obtaining consent string.');
          }
        });
      

How do you parse consent strings?

Depends on which standard!

• For TCFv1 strings, the consent-string library from the IAB is used.
• For TCFv2 strings, the tc-string-parse library from AudienceProject is used.
• For US Privacy Strings (CCPA), a custom implementation is used.

---

API Access

You can access consent string parsing programmatically through a simple interface on this site.

      curl https://consentstringdecoder.com/api/tcfv1/BOEFEAyOEFEAyAHABDENAI4AAAB9vABAASA
      curl https://consentstringdecoder.com/api/tcfv2/COvFyGBOvFyGBAbAAA...
      curl https://consentstringdecoder.com/api/ccpa/1YNN
    

---

Does the IAB run this site? Do they support it?

Nope! Hopefully lowering the bar to understand consent signals is a net positive for the IAB, but there is no formal relationship.

---

Bugs? Feedback? Send an email to admin@consentstringdecoder.com!