02/10/2020
CNIL Publishes Amended Guidelines and Recommendations on Cookies and Other Tracers
The CNIL has adopted amended guidelines as well as a recommendation on the use of cookies and other tracers. The deadline for compliance with the new guidelines is end of March 2021 at the latest.
The main principles confirmed by the CNIL
Regarding user consent:
• Continuing to browse a web site can no longer be considered as a valid expression of the user's consent;
• Users must consent to the storage of cookies and tracers by a clear positive act (such as clicking on "I accept" in a cookie banner). If they do not do so, no cookies or tracer that is not essential for the operation of the website can be placed on their device
• Users should be able to withdraw their consent easily and at any time
• Refusing tracers should be as easy as accepting them
Information requirements:
• Users must be clearly informed of the purposes of cookies ans tracers before consenting, as well as the consequences related to their acceptance or rejection
• They must also be informed of the identity of all actors using cookies or tracers subject to consent
• The organizations operating tracers must be able to provide, at any time, proof of the valid collection of the free, informed, specific and unambiguous consent of the user
CNIL recommendations
• In addition, the CNIL recommends that the interface for collecting consent not only include an “accept all” button but also a “refuse all” button
• It suggests that websites, which generally retain consent to tracers for a certain period of time, also retain Internet users' refusal for a certain period, so as not to question the Internet user again on each of their visits
• In addition, so that the user is fully aware of the scope of his consent, the CNIL recommends that, when tracers allow monitoring on sites other than the site visited, consent should be collected on each of the sites concerned by this monitoring
FAQs on the amending guidelines and the CNIL "cookies and other tracers" recommendation are available here.
The guidelines on cookies and other tracers are available here and the recommendations containing practices how to comply with cookie requirements here.
The press release is available here.