design-reviews#1218: <usermedia> Capability Element (part of PEPC)

#1218: <usermedia> Capability Element (part of PEPC)

Opened

Apr 7, 2026

Follows the Web Platform Design Principles.
Includes Security and Privacy Considerations sections based on answers to the Security/Privacy Questionnaire.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/WICG/PEPC
Primary contacts:
- Daniel Vogelheim (@otherdaniel), Google Chrome, Spec Writer
- Minh Le (@MinhAnhL), Google Chrome, PM
- Thomas Nguyen (@tungnh), Google Chrome, Engineer
Organization/project driving the specification: Google Chrome
This work is being funded by: Google Chrome
Group intended to standardize this work: - WebRTC Working Group.
Incubation and standards groups that have discussed the design:
- https://github.com/WICG/PEPC/issues/62
- TPAC 2024
- WebAppSec 2025
- Breakouts planned at TPAC 2025
- WebRTC WG and editor's meeting 2025-2026

Multi-stakeholder feedback:
- Chromium: Implementing the MVP, the last PEPC OT showed a great improvement for the user experience and granting flow.
- Mozilla: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1245, https://github.com/WICG/PEPC/issues/88#issuecomment-3800739616
- WebKit: Agreed on the initial scope during the WebRTC editor's meeting, and discussions are ongoing to further improve the feature.
- Developers:

Historical context: This is a subsequence step of <permission> element proposal, and in response to feedback and discussions, we are moving away from a single, generic permission element. Instead, we are proposing separate elements tailored to specific capabilities. After splitting and releasing the <geolocation> element proposal, we are now introducing the <usermedia> element. This new element will inherit all attributes, events, and checks from the <permission> element. Ultimately, the <permission> element will function solely as a base class for specialized capability elements and will not be for direct use.
The specification is currently hosted in a personal repository, and has not yet been submitted as a formal pull request. We intend to request a review from the WebRTC's media capture extensions this week.