Fides Documentation – Ethyca
Consent records
Most privacy regulations require businesses to store a receipt, or proof that they have correctly obtained a user's consent choices and what those choices, or preferences, are. Consent records allow businesses to demonstrate they are complying with both a user's consent preferences and various privacy regulations globally based on the user's location.
What are consent records? Permalink for this section
Consent records represent a user's consent choices -- what a person has opted in to, opted out of, or acknowledged for specific privacy notices. In Fides, each set of consent records acts as a consent receipt that captures:
- Who the choices belong to: an identity such as an email address, phone number, or custom identifier
- What the choices apply to: one or more privacy notices
- What the person chose: opt in, opt out, or acknowledge (depending on the notice type)
- When the choice was collected: a timestamp for auditability
- Additional context: optional metadata such as collection method, geography, or the URL where consent was given
Consent values Permalink for this section
When a user interacts with a privacy notice, Fides records one of three consent values:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
opt_in |
The user consented to the data use described by the notice |
opt_out |
The user rejected the data use described by the notice |
acknowledge |
The user acknowledged the notice (used for notice-only notices that don't require an opt-in/opt-out choice) |
Each value is tied to a specific privacy notice and the particular version of that notice that was presented to the user when they made their choice.
How Fides stores consent records Permalink for this section
Every time a user submits their consent choices, Fides creates a consent record -- a timestamped document that captures the full set of consent choices from that submission. These records are immutable: Fides never overwrites a previous record when new preferences arrive. Instead, it stores each submission as a new record, building a complete history of consent activity.
Current and historical consent records Permalink for this section
Fides provides two ways to view consent data, each designed for a different use case:
Current consent records represent the effective consent state for a specific person right now. When you retrieve current consent records, Fides returns:
- The most recent saved consent record for each notice the person has interacted with
- Default values for any notices where the user has not yet made a consent choice
This view is useful when you need to determine what a user has consented to at the present moment -- for example, to decide whether to fire an advertising tag or process data for a particular purpose.
Historical consent records are the stored history of user consent choices over time. Each record captures a snapshot of the consent choices that were submitted at a particular moment. This view is useful when you need to audit consent history, generate compliance reports, or analyze how consent choices have changed over time.
Identities Permalink for this section
Consent records are always associated with an identity -- the information that ties a set of consent choices to a specific person. Fides supports flexible identity types beyond just email and phone number, including custom identifiers like loyalty IDs and account numbers.
To use an identity type with consent records, you first register it with Fides as an identity definition. For a full explanation of how identities work and how to register them, see Identities.
Next steps Permalink for this section
For an overview of the Consent v3 API, see Consent API (v3).
[Consent Form](/content/docs/consent/concepts/fundamentals/consent-form "Consent Form"/index.html) [Identities](/content/docs/consent/concepts/fundamentals/identities "Identities"/index.html)