You may not be aware that GDPR regulations are changing slightly. Ongoing, all companies that use cookies may have to change how their users interact with them.
If your site uses cookies for any of the following, then you are fine:
- cookies used to remember the goods a user wishes to buy when they add goods to their online basket or proceed to the checkout on an internet shopping website
- session cookies providing security that is essential to comply with data protection security requirements for an online service the user has requested – eg online banking services
- or load-balancing cookies that ensure the content of your page loads quickly and effectively by distributing the workload across several computers.
However, if you use cookies for other purposes like marketing and user behaviour tracking, then you will need to have some changes made.
The changes are related to tracking services like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel tracking and Google Tag Manager. You are now required to ask users to accept cookies, even if the cookie is only collecting anonymous data.
This means that users now MUST click "I agree" or "Accept cookies" before services like Google Analytics can be enabled on your site.
In order to comply with the legislation changes to GDPR the you have the following options for your website:
- Remove Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel tracking, etc (this means you will also no longer require a Cookie notification on your site).
- Upgrade your site so that the relevant code is only loaded when your users click "I agree" or "Accept cookies".
As the new cookie regulations are already live, it is recommended that you make this updates as soon as possible. If you want more info, check out the guidance on the ICO's site.