Google to Use EU and UK IP Addresses for Ad Tracking Starting August 2026

Google has begun notifying advertisers that, starting on or shortly after August 3, 2026, it will repurpose IP addresses collected from users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, and Switzerland for ad measurement and personalization. While Google already receives these addresses through customer tags, SDKs, HTTP calls, and uploads to route traffic and deliver ads, the upcoming change marks a shift in purpose: the same data will now be used to identify individual devices. Under the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), this falls under Feature 3, "Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically," which attaches to personalization purposes requiring explicit user consent rather than legitimate interest.

The move carries significant privacy implications because an IP address qualifies as personal data under GDPR. Using it to distinguish a device is a foundational step in fingerprinting, the practice of tracking users across sessions even when cookies are blocked or cleared. Google itself publicly opposed this practice in 2019 when then-Chrome engineering director Justin Schuh wrote that fingerprinting "subverts user choice" because users cannot clear it the way they can clear cookies. The company reversed that stance in December 2024 by dropping its prohibition on fingerprinting for advertisers, a decision the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) called "irresponsible" within 24 hours. Users concerned about how their device can be uniquely identified online can run a browser fingerprint test to see what signals their browser exposes.

The timing adds further complexity. On May 18, 2026, the ICO published advice to the UK government recommending that consent remain mandatory for tracking that profiles people across services, while allowing contextual advertising without consent. Google's rollout sits awkwardly against this guidance, though the company frames the change around privacy-enhancing technologies including on-device processing, trusted execution environments, and secure multi-party computation. Some personalization features will not arrive until late 2026 or early 2027, at which point Google says users on its own properties will get a choice about IP-based personalization. Readers who want a broader view of their exposure can take a privacy checkup to identify leaks and tracking vectors across their connection. With IP-based device identification now expanding into tightly regulated markets, advertisers and users alike will need to reassess compliance strategies and the practical limits of consent in digital advertising.