In 2020, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were created every day on the internet. The volume and use of data have grown enormously in the past few years, and so did the need for businesses to ensure accountability for it. The rise of global data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) has put legal obligations on businesses to protect user’s personal data and manage it securely.
In the wake of evolving privacy regulations, consent management platforms have grown in popularity because they help businesses collect, store and manage customer consents. This blog will discuss cookie consent management platforms that help websites to comply with cookie consent requirements of privacy regulations.
What is a consent management platform (CMP)?
A consent management platform (CMP) is a tool that helps websites to collect and manage user consent that is required for processing their personal data. Simply put, a consent management platform makes consent collection easier and transparent.
What does a consent management platform do?
Consent management platforms let you:
- Collect valid user consent
- Display consent banners to users
- Blocks scripts from running before you obtain user consent
- Record user consents for proof of compliance
Why should you use a consent management platform?
Getting users’ consent is required to collect data
Privacy regulations like GDPR (EU & UK), LGPD (Brazil), POPIA (South Africa) mandate that businesses should get consent for collecting and using the personal data of users. Since online identifiers like cookie IDs can overtime collect enough data to create a profile of a user and possibly identify an individual, they fall under the scope of personal data. Hence their use is regulated and requires consent from users.
To find out whether you should use a CMP or not for your website, check if it performs any of these actions. If any of these points apply to your business, a CMP will help you to effectively manage your site’s compliance.
- Use cookie categories such as performance, analytics, advertising, and social media cookies on your website.
- Use tracking cookies for purposes such as remarketing, behavioural advertising, and analytics.
- Use cookies that are set by third parties who have access to the data.
Don’t know what cookies are used on your site? Find out right away.
Build trust in your data collection
In a Salesforce research, 58% of customers noted that they are comfortable with relevant personal data being used in a transparent and beneficial manner. While another study noted that 80% of consumers say they left because the brand was using their data without consent.
In an increasingly privacy-conscious world, regardless of the laws, businesses should be able to honour an individual’s privacy and ensure that your end-user has full control and transparency over how their data is being used. To achieve such transparency, you have to notify users about how and why you collect their data and get their consent for the same.
- Integrate user consent as part of your businesses’ privacy-friendly policy.
- Allow users to opt-in or out of data collection via a cookie consent notice that is easy-to-read and easy-to-use.
- Avoid the risk to your businesses’ reputation due to privacy fines and violations.
What are the core features of a consent management platform?
Collection of consent
Firstly, users should be informed that their personal data is being collected and for what purposes so that they can decide if they agree to the processing or not. Cookie consent banners and popups are the most common implementation of consent requests on websites. For the consent to be GDPR compliant, it should adhere to certain standards:
- Consent should be freely given, for instance, access to the website cannot be dependent on whether a user gives consent to cookies or not.
- Consent should be informed i.e. the reasons for using cookies must be clearly stated in your consent banner.
- Consent should be given for a specific purpose i.e. user should be able to consent only for the use of cookies and not for any other kinds of personal data processing.
- Consent should be given via a positive or affirmative act like clicking on an ‘Agree’ button or checking a tick box.
- Consent should be requested using clear and plain language so the user has clarity on what they are agreeing to.
- Consent can be withdrawn. Once the user agrees to cookies, they should be able to revoke the consent as easily as they gave consent.
Banner customization options
While GDPR sets out the requirements for what valid consent should be, it does not explicitly state how the cookie consent banner should be. You should be able to customize your cookie banner to best reflect your website’s design and branding.
CookieYes CMP offers 10+ cookie banner customizations, including the layout, colours, content, behaviour and advanced CSS options. You don’t need any knowledge of coding or integrations.
Want to try a free consent management platform?
- Sign up on CookieYes for free!
- Customize the banner and preview it.
- Copy the code and paste it on your website
✅ Done! Your website now has a GDPR compliant cookie banner.
Auto-detection of cookies
To obtain user consent, websites have to offer full disclosure to users about the cookie being used on their site. For this, you should be able to automatically detect cookies on your site and tailor the cookie banner preferences for users.
Scanning for cookies
A consent management platform should have an in-built cookie tracking software that scans websites to identify and list what cookies, beacons, tags, tracking pixels, and other tracking technologies are deployed on a website.
Categorization of cookies
Once a cookie scan is complete, the cookies are categorized based on their purposes – necessary, functional, analytics, performance, advertisement and others. A detailed report is generated that can be made available on your cookie consent banners under ‘Preferences’.
Using CookieYes CMP, You can also utilize your cookie scan report and generate a custom cookie policy for your website that can be added within your privacy policy or separately on your website.
Auto-blocking third-party cookies
Third-party cookies that are often the lifeline for advertisers and analytics are a big no-no until a user consents to their use. A CMP should block third-party cookies till the user takes action via the cookie banner.
CookieYes CMP features an in-built mechanism to block third-party cookies like Google Analytics, Facebook pixels and Hotjar cookies from pre-loading on a user’s browser. You can also manually add custom third-party scripts to block. After you implement a CookieYes cookie consent banner to your website, the banner will automatically block third-party scripts from loading on a user’s browser till they give consent.
Record of user consents
A CMP also helps in maintaining a centralized trail of user consents to demonstrate compliance with privacy regulations. This is significant for laws like the GDPR requires businesses to demonstrate their compliance.
Data protection authorities can ask you to demonstrate that you have taken consent as per the requirements of the law, meaning you need to document the user consents that you’ve collected. You can record the following documentation in the consent log:
- Who gave consent i.e. the anonymized IP address of the user who gave the consent, including the country of the user.
- When the consent was given, the timestamp and data when the consent was given.
- What the user consented to or the consent status i.e. whether the user accepted, rejected, or partially accepted ad the cookie categories they agreed to. You can read about the consent log in detail here.
Additional benefits of using CookieYes CMP
- Easy integration on any Content Management System (CMS) that a website runs on, with complete documentation.
- Intuitive dashboard that gives website owners a single place to manage all customisation options and features.
- A personalized user experience for website visitors with auto-translation of banner in 30+ languages.
- Revisit consent button so users can withdraw consent or change their cookie preferences after giving consent for the first time.
- Easy consent support for Google products, including Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
- Bult-in integration with Do Not Track (DNT) status of website users’ browser setting.
- Cookie policy and privacy policy generator for full privacy compliance for websites.
Consent management is an opportunity to not just comply with regulations but also to show users that you respect their data. Put consent management to practice with a best-in-class CookieYes CMP.
FAQ on Consent Management Platforms
Do I need consent management for my website?
Yes, consent management is key if you want your website to be privacy compliant. Websites in the EU and UK come under the scope of the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. Due to GDPR’s extraterritorial scope, websites that have visitors from the EU or UK also are required to adhere to cookie consent rules in the EU.
Similarly, data privacy regulations in the US such as CCPA (California), CDPA (Virginia), LGPD (Brazil), POPIA (South Africa), CPPA (Canada), PDPA (Singapore) and so on also regulate the use of personal data and cookies. Therefore, it’s in your best interest that you use a consent management platform like CookieYes and avoid the regulatory fines.
What is a cookie consent manager?
A cookie consent manager is a CMP that helps you to manage cookie consent, which is required as per respective privacy laws. It helps websites to collect consent through cookie banners and popups, scan your website for cookies, automatically block third-party cookies and keep a record of the user consent. Cookie consent managers help with all aspects of cookie compliance.
What is GDPR compliance?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a data privacy legislation in the EU and the UK (UK GDPR). GDPR compliance refers to all the provisions that need to be fulfilled by businesses to comply with the GDPR. One of the major requirements is to obtain consent from users when you collect their personal data. Consent Management Platforms or CMPs are tools that help with managing consent collection and protecting user’s personal data as per the data subject rights defined in the GDPR.
