Prepare yourself for May 26th daft cookie legislation
NEWS / Tuesday 10 May 2011
On May 26th, a new law comes into force surrounding the use of cookies. This law means that cookies used on websites will need to be “opt-in” rather than “opt-out”. If your site uses cookies (it almost certainly does, and, if we built your site, it definitely does) and it does not explicitly request the user’s permission (as it almost certainly doesn’t) your site will likely be breaking the law.
Having read the Information Commissioner’s Office’s advice, we expect that anyone using Google Analytics will be breaking the law too – unless there is a specific opt-in. The Information Commissioner’s Office’s website is currently using Google Analytics and it will be interesting to see if they change this before May 26th.
The motivation behind this legislation is likely down to worries about 3rd party cookies tracking your browsing across multiple websites. I think this is a reasonable privacy concern; most of us do not want our browsing tracked from site to site. But this can be easily dealt with from within your browser settings. Legislation requiring browsers to default to these privacy settings would be a good deal easier to implement, would protect EU consumers from being tracked while on foreign websites too and would be far easier to enforce.
So what should you do about the new legislation? Firstly you need to found out if, and why, your website uses cookies. To help you do this there are tools built into browsers such as Firefox, but feel free to contact us if you’re not sure.
If you find that your website does use cookies and will require users consent then there are three options:
- Adapt your website so that when a new visitor accesses the site, they are asked for permission before cookies are set
- Take your website offline
- Do nothing
The last option may mean that your website is breaking the law, but the Information Commissioner’s Office has stated if a complaint is received they will contact you to request your plans for compliance rather than decide to seek prosecution. Before deciding to do nothing it may be prudent to obtain professional legal advice.
However, if you decide to comply with this new legislation we will be happy to advise and/or provide a quote to implement the changes necessary to bring your website in line with the law.
For more information please contact your systems analyst or get in touch using our contact form.