IAB expands its Diligence Platform to EU with upcoming launch in Germany

After launching a platform in the U.S. in 2024 to set common standards for stakeholders in the advertising tech industry, the Interactive Advertising Bureau is expanding into the EU with the upcoming release of the IAB Diligence Platform in Germany. 

The new platform debuts 1 July in partnership with Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft, one of the IAB's largest members in the EU. It is intended to be a centralized tool for managing and sharing diligence assessments among adtech stakeholders. The platform combines standardized frameworks, vendor-specific data flow modules adapted for EU regulations, and secure document and evidence management to support vendor diligence at scale.

"Increasing regulatory requirements and the growing complexity of digital advertising ecosystems call for a more standardized and collaborative approach," BVDW CEO Carsten Rasner said. "With the IAB Diligence Platform, we are establishing a new standard for compliance matters in the German market, making responsibilities more transparent and strengthening both efficiency and trust within the industry."

'Standards equals scale'

The IAB Diligence Platform, powered by compliance vendor SafeGuard Privacy, enables companies to complete privacy assessments and securely share them across partners throughout the adtech ecosystem to reduce duplication, accelerate deal cycles and improve transparency, according to SafeGuard Privacy Co-founder and CEO Richy Glassberg. IAB members only need to fill out diligence questionnaires on the platform once. The questionnaires are stakeholder-specific to each entity's role within the adtech industry, whether they are a publisher's diligence of a supply-side platform or an advertiser's diligence of a demand-side platform, he said.

"Standards equals scale, and there is no reason for everybody (in the industry) to go write their own privacy (requests for information)," Glassberg said in an interview with the IAPP. "Solving the fragmentation is critical for the industry. Everybody asked for this, (IAB members in the EU) saw the success in the U.S. and they wanted to replicate that in the Europe."

Certification offered for IAB members in Germany, platform available EU-wide

As part of the launch of the Diligence Platform in Germany, BVDW will also partner with Nexidia to offer a certification program for EU adtech firms that will provide a recognized standard for demonstrating compliance using data from the platform in the German market. 

"Our goal is to bring greater consistency and transparency to how privacy compliance is managed across the ecosystem," Nexidia Co-Founder and Managing Partner Christopher Reher said in a statement. "By introducing a certification-backed framework tailored to the German market, which ties to the IAB Diligence Platform, we are helping organizations navigate GDPR requirements more effectively while reducing duplication and operational burden."

Building off its existing relationship with SafeGuard Privacy, IAB Executive Vice President and General Counsel Michael Hahn said that the expansion of the Diligence Platform into the EU will help online marketers streamline their compliance, amid a host of evolving digital regulations. He pointed to the 45 million euro fine issued to Vodafone last year by Germany's Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information as evidence of the bloc's stepped-up enforcement on advertisers. 

"We partnered with SafeGuard Privacy to ensure marketers have a solution that’s comprehensive, defensible, and industry-specific," Hahn said. "It combines legal, business, and data flow questions with specific questions designed for publishers, advertisers, agencies, (supply-side platforms), (demand-side platforms) and beyond."

Glassberg said that since the Diligence Platform launched in the U.S. in 2024, approximately 800 of the 1,100 adtech firms invited to join have signed on to the platform. He said that while the new EU platform is being offered through the BVDW to its members, those members will be able to use it to demonstrate compliance with key EU digital regulations, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation, regardless of what country they primarily operate in. 

"Nexidia is going to be offering a certification in German and that is very much a local market certification that a third-party auditor will be doing," Glassberg said. "But this product we are releasing is a pan-European product because the GDPR is a pan-European law. People are going to be able to use for their vendors outside of Germany as well."

New AI features

A key feature of the new Diligence Platform, Glassberg said, is three new AI tools embedded in the platform, all of which require a human in the loop to make final operational decisions. 

The first tool in the platform is called Privacy Assist AI. The team at SafeGuard Privacy wrote all the prompts to conduct privacy RFI assessments that reflect adtech business requirements in U.S. state laws. Glassberg said the tool allows IAB members to input their privacy notice and other required documents, review them within 12 minutes and receive suggested answers and comments for 75% of the platform’s questions.

The second tool, Privacy RFI, can help customers align their privacy RFIs so they can adequately respond to requests from non-IAB members. 

The final tool is an AI model trained on proprietary data that functions like a chatbot, Glassberg said. IAB members will be able to query various answers to privacy RFIs. For example, an adtech firm would be able to ask the model what states have sensitive data requirements in their privacy laws and, among the vendors the firm may have relationships with, which entities have said yes to data flow and legal questions surrounding transferring sensitive data. 

"It's very hard to build the right AI for the legal world," Glassberg said. "Our AI never does the work for you, but the user experience is built to make it easy for a lawyer or privacy professional to review all of the information they would put on the platform. All of our AI products are built with enterprise software in our secure environment, there's no data sharing, so your data is always protected."

Preparing for the Digital Omnibus

Amid the ongoing Digital Omnibus negotiations in the EU, Glassberg said that just how the Diligence Platform has been continually updated to reflect the changes in U.S. state privacy law, IAB members in the EU will remain on top of any potential reforms that come out of the omnibus process. 

"This is a living, breathing platform," Glassberg said. "As things change, the platform changes. There are all kinds of workflow within the platform that let either a vendor or a host or a participant know something has changed with a law."