Online Privacy News and Views
Draft EU ePrivacy Regulation Leaked
A draft of the proposed legislation to replace the outdated EU ePrivacy Directive was leaked on the Politico.eu (PDF) website this week. The proposal is for a much stricter regime, requiring prior consent for cookies and any kind of online tracking techniques. Fines for failure to comply may reach as high as 4% of a company’s global revenues.
Calls for Cookie Law to be Strengthened
Preliminary results of a consultation on the EU ePrivacy Directive, which includes the rules on consent for cookies, show that citizens, civil society groups and data protection authorities all want to see a strengthening of rights and rules in online privacy. Industry however is hoping for a different outcome.
The GDPR, Cookie Consent and Customer-Centric Privacy
The EU GDPR heralds a big change for online services and explicitly brings the use of cookies and similar technologies under its remit. The European Commission has now launched a public consultation for a revision of the ePrivacy Directive from which the EU cookie laws are derived to make sure these two instruments are harmonised for maximum consistency in the areas where they overlap. In this article I provide an overview of what the GDPR may mean for cookie consent as we have come to know it, and the opportunities this presents for forward thinking businesses to embrace a customer first online experience with respect to privacy.
Facebook Concedes to Cookie Ruling
Facebook will be making changes for Belgian visitors in response to a ruling by the country’s Data Protection Commissioner, the company announced yesterday.
Online Privacy: Whose Responsibility is it Anyway?
I read a lot of cookie policies. I realise that puts me in a very small minority, but it is part of my job. However, I think they can be very enlightening. Often overlooked as the poor cousin to the privacy policy, I believe I can learn much more about a company’s real attitudes to operational privacy from their cookie policy than I can with their privacy policy.
Facebook Challenged Over Cookie Compliance
Facebook’s consumer tracking practices have been coming under increased scrutiny in recent months, including a recent report carried out for Belgium’s Data Protection Authority (DPA), where the authors provide the opinion that the company is in direct breach of the EU cookie laws.
Cookie Sweep Findings – Could Do Better
Most websites sites are providing information about cookies, but a lot less are obtaining consent and even fewer providing user controls. These are the broad findings published this week by the ICO and Article 29 Working Party, following their cookie sweep conducted last autumn.
Cookies Used to Identify Individuals by GCHQ?
The UK spy agency GCHQ used the contents of common tracking cookies to help identify individuals as part of its surveillance operations, according to an article published by The Intercept over the weekend.
Ignoring Do Not Track Risks Cookie Law Compliance
The UK’s most used cookie law compliance model is not compliant if Do Not Track requests are ignored by websites setting tracking cookies, according to the UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) case work team.
Device Fingerprinting Requires Visitor Consent
The use of device fingerprinting techniques, which are increasingly being employed as an alternative to cookies, should be treated by website owners as equivalent to cookies when it comes to the requirements for gaining user consent under the various EU cookie laws.
