A new UK-Canada partnership has been announced to create a laboratory focused on building technical infrastructure for digital privacy enforcement, marking a shift away from policy-led approaches toward system-level solutions.
The initiative, known as 0PN Lab, is a collaboration between Open Consent Group Ltd, a UK-based organisation working on consent and transparency standards, and Digital Transparency Lab Canada, which develops regulatory capacity and transparency infrastructure tools.
The laboratory will focus on developing what the partners describe as “digital public transparency infrastructure” for jurisdictions aligned with Convention 108+, the international data protection framework adopted by more than 55 countries.
Its work is aimed at building shared technical systems that allow privacy obligations to be enforced at scale, addressing what both organisations identify as a gap between digital privacy law and operational enforcement capacity.
Current data protection regimes, including GDPR and Convention 108+, rely heavily on reporting, complaints processes, and manual audits. According to the partnership, these mechanisms have not scaled in line with automated data collection, AI systems, and cross-border digital services.
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The laboratory will focus on developing standards-based infrastructure, including identity disclosure systems for data controllers, verifiable notice and consent records, and machine-readable audit mechanisms designed to support regulatory oversight across large digital ecosystems.
Mark Lizar, a co-founder of the initiative and editor of international transparency standards, said the aim is to move privacy enforcement away from document-based compliance models and towards verifiable, system-level accountability.
The partnership structure is designed as a commons-based model, meaning technical specifications and infrastructure components will be developed as shared public resources rather than proprietary systems. This approach is intended to support interoperability across national borders and regulatory systems, rather than creating isolated national frameworks.
The laboratory will initially focus on Commonwealth and Convention 108+ jurisdictions, positioning the UK among early adopters of shared transparency infrastructure. According to the announcement, the long-term objective is to enable coordinated regulatory oversight across multiple jurisdictions using common technical standards.
