W3C - News

• Consortium Members elect Board of Directors

  We are pleased to announce that W3C Consortium Members have elected the following seven people, listed in alphabetical order, to the World Wide Web Consortium, Inc. Board of Directors:Koichi MoriyamaChris NeedhamTheresa O'ConnorFlorian RivoalAvneesh SinghLéonie WatsonHongru (Judy) ZhuThey join Directors appointed by our current Partners: Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, Chunming Hu, Tatsuya Kurosaka (respectively by ERCIM, France; Beihang University, China; and WCAP, Japan); and Tim Berners-Lee who acts as a non-voting Board member.All Board terms are for two years, starting 30 September 2026 until 30 September 2028.We thank the 12 candidates who ran in this election.The W3C Board of Directors is the governing body of the Consortium. The Board has ultimate authority on its strategic direction, has legal obligations and fiduciary responsibility over W3C as a whole. Directors are formally responsible for the correct running of the organization; this is generally characterized in three broad “fiduciary” duties: (1) a duty of care (to exercise good business judgment of a reasonable person with their experience); (2) duty of loyalty (to serve the best interest of the organization); and (3) a duty of obedience (in accordance with all applicable laws and rules). W3C Board of Directors seats are non-paid positions. Learn more about the W3C Board of Directors responsibilities.

• W3C Workshop Report: The Future of ODRL

  W3C is pleased to announce the report from the W3C Workshop on the Future of ODRL, held in July 2026 in London, UK, and online.Bringing together participants from standards organizations, industry, academia and the broader policy, data and rights communities, the workshop covered media, core semantics, banking and finance, data spaces, legal and regulatory applications, and new language features. It was explicitly positioned as a turning point for ODRL.The emerging vision is considerably broader than simply producing another revision of the ODRL vocabulary. There was consensus to establish a new W3C ODRL Working Group set to work on ODRL 3.0 as a foundation for machine-readable, interoperable and increasingly machine-actionable policies, capable of operating across sectors and integrating with complementary standards for identity, provenance, legal information, data spaces and digital contracts.The workshop’s outcomes can be distilled into the following principal recommendations:Establish the new W3C ODRL 3.0 Working GroupStart with use cases and explicit requirementsStrengthen the formal semantics of ODRLDefine conformance for policy-processing softwareDevelop a comprehensive conformance test suiteAdopt modular and potentially multi-level conformanceImprove usabilityPosition ODRL as an interoperability layerInvestigate integration with complementary standardsThe workshop's closing discussion confirmed that the workshop chairs would draft a Working Group charter. The intention is to socialize the charter at TPAC 2026 in Dublin, with the objective of moving into the next phase of ODRL 3.0 by the end of 2026.W3C thanks JP Morgan Chase for hosting the workshop; thanks the Program Committee, the workshop speakers, and all participants for making this event successful.

• First Public Working Draft: Bitstring Status List v1.1

  The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Bitstring Status List v1.1. This specification describes a privacy-preserving, space-efficient, and high-performance mechanism for publishing status information such as suspension or revocation of Verifiable Credentials through use of bitstrings.Feedback is welcome via GitHub.

• Group Note Draft: Verifiable Credentials Data Model Threat Model v2.1

  The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has published the first draft of a Group Note titled Verifiable Credentials Data Model Threat Model v2.1. This document describes a threat model for the Verifiable Credentials Data Model specification. It identifies and analyzes security and privacy threats specific to ecosystems in which issuers issue verifiable credentials to holders, who in turn present verifiable presentations to verifiers.

• Authorized Translations of WCAG 2.2 and 2.1 in French updated

  The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published updated Authorized French Translations of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):Règles pour l’accessibilité des contenus web (WCAG) 2.2Règles pour l’accessibilité des contenus web (WCAG) 2.1 The Lead Translation Organization for these authorized translations was Access42. Other translations of accessibility resources, including non-technical and educational resources, are listed in All WAI Translations. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) particularly encourages the development of authorized translations of WCAG 2.2 and other technical specifications to facilitate their adoption and implementation internationally. For information on developing an authorized translation, please see Policy for Authorized W3C Translations.Translations enable broader adoption of W3C resources and serve worldwide audience across languages and cultures. Explore more W3C translations and learn how to contribute to translation efforts.

• First Public Working Draft: SHACL 1.2 Inference Rules

  The Data Shapes Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of SHACL 1.2 Inference Rules. This document defines the Inference Rules support of the SHACL Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL). While the Core part of SHACL focuses on the basic syntax of shapes and constraint validation of data graphs, the SHACL Inference Rules cover features that can be used to infer new triples from existing triples in the data graph.Feedback is welcome via GitHub.

• First Public Working Draft: Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 4

  The Web Authentication Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 4. This specification defines an API enabling the creation and use of strong, attested, scoped, public key-based credentials by web applications, for the purpose of strongly authenticating users. Conceptually, one or more public key credentials, each scoped to a given WebAuthn Relying Party, are created by and bound to authenticators as requested by the web application. The user agent mediates access to authenticators and their public key credentials in order to preserve user privacy. Authenticators are responsible for ensuring that no operation is performed without user consent. Authenticators provide cryptographic proof of their properties to Relying Parties via attestation. This specification also describes the functional model for WebAuthn conformant authenticators, including their signature and attestation functionality. See changes since Web Authentication Level 3.Feedback is welcome via GitHub issues.

• W3C opens 2026 community survey

  Following on the success of the surveys of the W3C community over the last few years, we are conducting the W3C 2026 survey to get to know our community better, investigate needs, and understand how we can improve.Further to the 2025 survey, we already implemented changes that W3C Members benefit from, such as quarterly onboarding calls and monthly newsletters, to name only a few.This year's survey is being run through SurveyMonkey and should take about 8 minutes to complete. It is available to members as well as those who are part of the larger W3C community. Answers are anonymous.Links for W3C Members:ChineseEnglishJapaneseLinks for the larger W3C community:ChineseEnglishJapaneseThe survey closes on 30 September 2026. We look forward to hearing from you!

• Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 3 is now a W3C Recommendation

  The Web Authentication Working Group is pleased to publish Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 3 as a W3C Recommendation.This specification defines an API enabling the creation and use of strong, attested, scoped, public key-based credentials by web applications, for the purpose of strongly authenticating users. Conceptually, one or more public key credentials, each scoped to a given WebAuthn Relying Party, are created by and bound to authenticators as requested by the web application. The user agent mediates access to authenticators and their public key credentials in order to preserve user privacy. Authenticators are responsible for ensuring that no operation is performed without user consent. Authenticators provide cryptographic proof of their properties to Relying Parties via attestation. This specification also describes the functional model for WebAuthn conformant authenticators, including their signature and attestation functionality. Level 3 is the successor to Web Authentication Level 2. New features will be developed in Level 4.

• Patent Advisory Group recommends continuing work on Open Screen Application Protocol

  The Second Screen Working Group Patent Advisory Group (PAG), launched in September 2025, has published a report recommending that W3C continue work on the Open Screen Application Protocol. W3C launches a PAG to resolve issues in the event a patent has been disclosed that may be essential, but is not available under the W3C Royalty-Free licensing terms.