Cross-Device Consent Sharing lets a user's consent choices carry across their different devices — for example, from your website to your mobile app. It's available on Enterprise and Premium feature that must be enabled for your Settings-ID before you can use it.
How does it work?
When a user visits your site for the first time, their device is assigned a Controller-ID — a unique, random identifier stored in the browser's local storage (web) or device storage (mobile). Usercentrics uses the Controller-ID, together with your Settings-ID, to identify the user's consent record. On the same device, this lets the CMP recognize the user and skip re-showing the banner.
Across devices or sessions, for example, moving from web to a mobile app, or logging in again later, their consent can only be restored if you've implemented Cross-Device Consent Sharing. This requires you to store the user's Controller-ID against their account in your own backend and re-apply it when they return on another device.
If a user clears their local storage, your site can no longer recognize their device. They're treated as a new user and get a new Controller-ID the next time they visit.
Considerations
Don't add the data-controller-id attribute to your Usercentrics script tag unless Usercentrics has enabled Cross-Device Consent Sharing for your Settings-ID. Using it without permission can produce inaccurate consent history.
Limitations
Cross-Device Consent Sharing is built to restore consent across a user's own devices, and only works once you've implemented it. It doesn't automatically extend consent across separate, unrelated domains. Modern browser privacy protections (such as storage partitioning in current versions of Chrome and Safari) block any consent-management tool — not just Usercentrics — from carrying consent across different root domains.
If your setup spans multiple root domains and you need consent to carry between them, talk to your CSM about your options.
How to enable it?
Request access
- Contact your CSM (Customer Success Manager) and ask about Cross-Device Consent Sharing.
- Your CSM confirms your plan tier is eligible (Enterprise or Premium).
- Your CSM enables the feature for your Settings-ID.
- Your CSM confirms when it's ready to use.
Implement it
1. After the CMP initializes, read the Controller-ID using UC_UI.getControllerId() (web) or the SDK's controllerId property (mobile).
2. Store it against the user's account in your own backend.
3. When the same user returns on a different device or session, inject the stored controllerId back via the data-controller-id attribute on the Usercentrics script tag (web) or the controllerId initialization parameter (mobile SDK).