Consumers

Consumers are Privacy Network participants who query consent data from publishers to verify and enforce user consent in their data processing workflows.

What Consumers Do

As a consumer, you:

  1. Connect to the Privacy Network via Delta Sharing protocol
  2. Query consent tables to discover and retrieve user consents
  3. Verify Trust Block signatures using published verification keys
  4. Enforce consent in your data processing and analytics workflows

How It Works

Consumers access consent data through Delta Sharing - a secure, read-only protocol for sharing data without copying or moving it.

Privacy Network (Delta Sharing)
    │
    ├── ea-consent-tb                  ← Discovery & payload: find and retrieve consents
    └── ea-consent-verification-keys   ← Verification: public keys for signatures

Typical Consumer Workflow:

  1. Incremental Pull - Query ea-consent-tb for new consents since last run (issuance_ts watermark)
  2. Filter & Discover - Filter by subject identifiers (subject_binding_digest, linkage tokens) and status_code
  3. Verify Signature - Use ea-consent-verification-keys to validate Trust Block signatures
  4. Enforce Consent - Apply verified consent to your data processing logic

What You’ll Need

  • Delta Sharing client - Python, Spark, or other Delta Sharing connector
  • Credentials from WebShield - Share URL and bearer token for authentication
  • Understanding of the schema - How the two tables relate and how to query them

Documentation

Getting Started

Consumer Getting Started Guide - Connect to the Privacy Network and run your first query.

Query Patterns

Query Patterns Guide - Common query patterns for incremental retrieval, subject lookup, and Trust Block verification.

Schema Reference

Both publishers and consumers work with the EA Consent Delta Sharing Schema:

View Schema Documentation - Complete table specifications, column definitions, and example queries.

Key sections for consumers:

  • How to consume - High-level workflow
  • Expected Queries - Common query patterns
  • Consumer Guidance - Per-table usage guidance

Key Concepts

Concept Description
EA Consent EasyAccess Consent - user consent for Privacy Network participation
Trust Block Cryptographically signed envelope containing the EA Consent VC
Verifiable Credential (VC) W3C standard format for the consent data
Delta Sharing Protocol for secure, read-only data sharing
Watermark Timestamp-based incremental retrieval pattern

Last Updated: 2026-01-29 22:23:30 UTC

Table of contents