DRAFT Web Real-Time Communications Working Group Charter

The mission of the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group is to define client-side APIs to enable Real-Time Communications in Web browsers. These APIs should enable building applications that can be run inside a browser, requiring no extra downloads or plugins, that allow communication between parties using audio, video, and supplementary real-time communication, without having to use intervening servers (unless needed for firewall traversal, or for providing intermediary services). APIs enabling supplementary functions, such as recording, image capture, and screen sharing are also in scope.

This draft charter is available on GitHub. Feel free to raise issues

Charter Status See the group status page and detailed change history.
Start date [dd monthname yyyy] (date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved)
End date [dd monthname yyyy] (Start date + 2 years)
Chairs
  • Guido Urdaneta (Google LLC)
  • Jan-Ivar Bruaroey (Mozilla Foundation)
  • youenn fablet (Apple Inc.)
Team Contacts Carine Bournez (0.2 FTE)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: approximately 1 per month
Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.
See also this group calendar

Motivation and Background

WebRTC enables real-time browser-to-browser communication. The WebRTC WG develops specifications to help ensure that features like audio, video, and data channels can interoperate across vendors and platforms. Those specifications also help developers design applications that respect users’ privacy.

Scope

Enabling real-time communications between Web browsers requires the following client-side technologies to be available:

The working group will address issues related to using these functions in various contexts on the Web platform, such as:

The Working Group will deliver specifications that cover the following functions until another group becomes available to take that work over:

Out of Scope

The definition of the network protocols used to establish the connections between peers is out of scope. In general, it is expected that protocol considerations will be handled in the IETF.

The definition of any new codecs for audio and video is out of scope.

Deliverables

Updated document status is available on the group publication status page.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Next step indicates whether the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state.

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will continue work on the following specifications:

WebRTC: Real-Time Communication in Browsers
state: Recommendation
Audio Output Devices API

This document defines a set of JavaScript APIs that let a Web application manage how audio is rendered on the user audio output devices.

Draft state:

Expected next step: republish Candidate Recommendation Snapshot

Latest publication: 2025-10-09

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/CR-audio-output-20171003/
Exclusion period began on 2017-10-03 and ended on 2017-12-02.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2015/07/webrtc-charter.html

Media Capture and Streams

This document defines a set of APIs that allow local media, including audio and video, to be requested from a platform, media to be sent over the network to another browser or device implementing the appropriate set of real-time protocols, and media received from another browser or device to be processed and displayed locally.

Draft state:

Next step: Recommendation in 2027

Latest publication: 2025-10-09

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/CR-mediacapture-streams-20211013/
Exclusion period began on 2021-10-13 and ended on 2021-12-12.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

Identifiers for WebRTC's Statistics API

This document defines a set of Javascript APIs that allow access to the statistical information about a PeerConnection.

Draft state:

Next step: republish Candidate Recommendation Snapshot

Latest publication: 2025-09-25

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2020/CR-webrtc-stats-20200114/
Exclusion period began on 2020-01-14 and ended on 2020-03-14.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/07/webrtc-charter.html

WebRTC Encoded Transform

This API defines an API surface for manipulating the bits on MediaStreamTracks being sent via an RTCPeerConnection.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: CR in 2027, Recommendation in 2028

Latest publication: 2026-06-25

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-webrtc-encoded-transform-20210921/
Exclusion period began on 2021-09-21 and ended on 2022-02-18.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

MediaStreamTrack Insertable Media Processing using Streams

This API defines an API surface for manipulating the bits on MediaStreamTracks carrying raw data.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: Candidate Recommendation

Latest publication: 2026-04-16

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/WD-mediacapture-transform-20220210/
Exclusion period began on 2022-02-10 and ended on 2022-07-10.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

MediaStream Recording

This document defines a recording API for use with MediaStreams.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: Candidate Recommendation

Latest publication: 2026-03-16

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-mediastream-recording-20130205/
Exclusion period began on 2013-02-06 and ended on 2013-07-06.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html

Screen Capture

This document defines how a user's display, or parts thereof, can be used as the source of a media stream using getOutputMedia, an extension to the Media Capture API [GETUSERMEDIA].

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: Candidate Recommendation

Latest publication: 2026-07-16

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-screen-capture-20150210/
Exclusion period began on 2015-02-10 and ended on 2015-07-10.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html

MediaStream Image Capture

This document specifies methods and camera settings to produce photographic image capture. The source of images is, or can be referenced via a MediaStreamTrack.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: WD

Latest publication: 2025-04-23

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-image-capture-20130709/
Exclusion period began on 2013-07-09 and ended on 2013-12-06.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html

Capture Handle - Bootstrapping Collaboration when Screensharing

This document proposes a mechanism by which an application APP can opt-in to exposing certain information with another application CAPTR, if CAPTR is screen-capturing the tab in which APP is running. It describes a mechanism for tab capture only.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: WD

Latest publication: 2025-03-06

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/WD-capture-handle-identity-20220510/
Exclusion period began on 2022-05-10 and ended on 2022-10-07.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

Media Capture from DOM Elements

This document defines how a stream of media can be captured from a DOM element, such as a <video>, <audio>, or <canvas> element, in the form of a MediaStream.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: WD

Latest publication: 2025-02-12

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-mediacapture-fromelement-20150219/
Exclusion period began on 2015-02-19 and ended on 2015-07-19.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html

Viewport Capture

This document defines how a browser viewport can be used as the source of a media stream using getViewportMedia, an extension to the Screen Capture API.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: WD

Latest publication: 2024-10-09

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/WD-mediacapture-viewport-20220524/
Exclusion period began on 2022-05-24 and ended on 2022-10-21.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

Region Capture

This document introduces an API for cropping a video track derived from display-capture of the current browsing context.

Draft state: Working Draft

Next step: WD

Latest publication: 2023-07-12

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/WD-mediacapture-region-20220405/
Exclusion period began on 2022-04-05 and ended on 2022-09-02.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

Discontinued Work

WebRTC Priority Control API

This API defines a control surface for manipulating the network control bits (DSCP bits) of outgoing WebRTC packets, and the queueing priority of outgoing WebRTC packets under congestion.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Proposed plan: Move content to WebRTC and WebRTC extensions specifications, discontinuing this document.

Latest publication: 2021-03-18

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/CR-webrtc-priority-20210318/
Exclusion period began on 2021-03-18 and ended on 2021-05-17.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/09/webrtc-charter.html

Identity for WebRTC 1.0

This document defines a set of ECMAScript APIs in WebIDL to allow and application using WebRTC to assert an identity, and to mark media streams as only viewable by another identity. This specification is being developed in conjunction with a protocol specification developed by the IETF RTCWEB group.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Proposed plan: Secure Frame (SFrame) added in WebRTC extension should replace this, covering data in addition to audio and video, so this document will be discontinued.

Latest publication: 2018-09-27

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-webrtc-identity-20180927/
Exclusion period began on 2018-09-27 and ended on 2018-11-26.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/07/webrtc-charter.html

MediaStreamTrack Content Hints

This specification extends MediaStreamTrack to provide a media-content hint attribute. This optional hint permits MediaStreamTrack consumers such as PeerConnection or MediaRecorder to encode or process track media with methods more appropriate to the type of content that is being consumed.

Draft state: Working Draft

Proposed plan: Move the content hints and their effect on constraints to the Media Capture and Streams and the MediaStream Recording specifications, and move the degradation preference parts to the WebRTC specification.

Latest publication: 2025-09-19

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/WD-mst-content-hint-20180703/
Exclusion period began on 2018-07-03 and ended on 2018-11-30.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2015/07/webrtc-charter.html

Scalable Video Coding (SVC) Extension for WebRTC

This document defines a set of ECMAScript APIs in WebIDL to extend the WebRTC 1.0 API to enable user agents to support scalable video coding (SVC).

Draft state: Working Draft

Proposed plan: Move the content to the WebRTC Recommendation

Latest publication: 2024-08-17

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2019/WD-webrtc-svc-20191022/
Exclusion period began on 2019-10-22 and ended on 2020-03-20.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/07/webrtc-charter.html

MediaStream Capture Scenarios

This document collates the target scenarios for the Media Capture task force. Scenarios represent the set of expected functionality that may be achieved by the use of the MediaStream Capture API.

Proposed plan: Non-normative document on the Note track but is no longer maintained and will be marked as discontinued.

WebRTC Extended Use Cases

This document describes an extended set of use cases motivating the development of additional WebRTC APIs, as well as the requirements derived from those use cases.

Proposed plan: Non-normative document on the Note track but is no longer maintained and will be marked as discontinued.

New Deliverables

The Working Group started work on extensions and will gradually develop them in the following extensions drafts, then move content into the WebRTC and Media Capture and Streams specifications when ready:

WebRTC Extensions

This document defines a set of ECMAScript APIs in WebIDL to extend the WebRTC 1.0 API.

Draft state: Editors draft

Media Capture and Streams Extensions

This document defines a set of ECMAScript APIs in WebIDL to extend the Media Capture and Streams specification.

Draft state: Editors draft

Timeline

Although the group expects all of its active deliverables to progress during this charter period, the charter does not include detailed milestone data for each specification because such data is speculative and easily becomes out of date. The Working Group does expect the following to occur:

  • Media Capture and Streams: Recommendation in 2027
  • WebRTC Encoded Transform: Recommendation in 2028

Success Criteria

In order to advance beyond Candidate Recommendation, each normative specification is expected to have at least two independent interoperable implementations of every feature defined in the specification, where interoperability can be verified by passing open test suites. In order to advance beyond Candidate Recommendation, each normative specification must have an open test suite of every feature defined in the specification.

There should be testing plans for each specification, starting from the earliest drafts.

To promote interoperability, all changes made to specifications in Candidate Recommendation or to features that have deployed implementations should have tests. Testing efforts should be conducted via the Web Platform Tests project.

Each specification should contain separate sections detailing all known security and privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and users.

This group is expected to be guided by the following documents:

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD. The Working Group is encouraged to engage collaboratively with the horizontal review groups throughout development of each specification. The Working Group is advised to seek a review at least 3 months before first entering CR and is encouraged to proactively notify the horizontal review groups when major changes occur in a specification following a review.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

Media Working Group
The Media Working Group develops client-side media processing APIs and features that are likely to intersect with the WebRTC Working Group developments.
WebTransport Working Group
The WebTransport Working Group develops a client/server API that has been inspired by WebRTC datachannels and may inform their future evolution.
Audio Working Group
The API developed by the Audio Working Group builds upon the MediaStream object built by this group; further collaboration on the management of audio output device is expected.
Web Application Security Working Group
The Web Application Security Working Group is developing guidance on APIs that expose sensitive information, and an API to manage permissions, both of which matter to several of this group specifications.
Second Screen Working Group
The Second Screen Presentation Working Group is developing APIs to allow rendering of media on secondary devices; potential overlap with features enabled by the Audio Output Devices API will need to be looked at.
Web Performance Working Group
The Web Performance Working Group APIs share goals and characteristics with the WebRTC Statistics API.
Media and Entertainment Interest Group
The Media and Entertainment Interest Group may uncover aspects that affect the design of real-time communications functions, e.g., on use of WebRTC for streaming of entertainment media content. The WebRTC Working Group will coordinate with the Interest Group on these use cases and requirements as appropriate.
Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
The Accessible Platform Architectures identifies use cases for users with disabilities and reviews technologies to avoid unintentional introduction of barriers. Its Media Accessibility User Requirements and Real-Time Communication Accessibility User Requirements provide important input to the work of this group.

External Organizations

IETF Applications and Real-Time Area (ART)
The RTC APIs developed by this group will build upon the protocols and formats developed in the IETF RTCWeb Working Group. Subsequent to the termination of that WG, this WG will liaise with other groups of the ART area and elsewhere in the IETF as appropriate; of particular interest are the MMUSIC, AVTEXT, ICE and QUIC working groups.
IETF Transport Area Working Group (TSVWG)
The TSVWG develops SCTP on which WebRTC data channels relies.
Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG)
The RTC APIs developed by this group will potentially reference the Fetch, Streams and other API specifications maintained by the WHATWG

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication. The group also welcomes non-participants to make technical contributions for ongoing work, provided they agree to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

The Chairs should periodically look through the non-W3C-Member contributors to the Working Group and consider whether each one should be invited to participate as an Invited Expert. If a non-W3C-Member contributor would like to participate in meetings, they are encouraged to apply to be an Invited Expert.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Conduct.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed in public repositories and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group home page.

Most Web Real-Time Communications Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work on GitHub issues. It also uses a public mailing list public-webrtc@w3.org (archive) The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-only mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.1, Consensus). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress and consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Deciding by Vote) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 15 May 2025). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Web specifications that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 3.4 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

Note:Display this table and update it when appropriate. Requirements for charter extension history are documented in the Charter Guidebook (section 4).

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 4.3, Advisory Committee Review of a Charter):

Charter Period Start Date End Date Changes
Initial Charter 5 May 2011 30 September 2015 N/A
Rechartered 27 July 2015 31 March 2018 This charter reflected the actual split of the various features identified in well-defined specifications, and added WebRTC NV in scope for the group.
Rechartered 24 July 2018 30 September 2020 This charter proposed an updated timeline for completion of WebRTC 1.0 and more details on the WebRTC NV work developed as extensions to the core APIs
Rechartered 30 September 2020 30 September 2022 This charter proposed a final timeline for completing WebRTC 1.0 and a more detailed picture of extensions to the core APIs, while opening the way for the media work to be moved to a separate Working Group
Rechartered 7 October 2022 30 September 2024 This charter reflects the updated list of deliverables the WebRTC Working Group is developing
Rechartered 7 August 2024 30 September 2026 This charter reflects the updated list of deliverables the WebRTC Working Group is developing
Chair update 2 October 2024 Guido Urdaneta appointed as co-chair of the WebRTC Working Group; Harald Alvestrand stepped down
Chair update 4 Feburary 2025 Bernard Aboba passed away
Chair update 10 March 2025 Youenn Fablet appointed as co-chair of the WebRTC Working Group.

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.