The news came at the start of the vacation season, and like all communications of this type in these days of rest... it's not insignificant!

In concrete termsCNIL reminds us that " simply continuing to browse a site can no longer be considered a valid expression of consent to the deposit of cookies. "
This reminder is described as a "novelty" by the CNIL: even if this principle had been in existence since the RGPD, it remained somewhat followed from afar (to remain in the euphemism)... With this reminder, the CNIL insists on the strict application of the RGPD.

When the RGPD came into force just over a year ago, the dilemma for operators was simple:

  • or stay on the strict RGPD, with explicit acceptance, and lose between 80% and 90% from traffic tracking (via analytics)
  • or play on the exception provided by thearticle 82 of the French Data Protection Act, which authorizes the absence of explicit consent in certain cases, by combining it with continued browsing of the site... However, this exception only concerns "communication services" and in no case the "survival" of a site or the "need to track traffic", as heard here and there...

With this "guideline", the subject will have to be clarified: consent and cookie, or nothing at all! The consequence will undoubtedly be a drop in analytics traffic tracking, or an increase in the bounce rate. Dashboards will therefore have to take account of this break in measurement.

Finally, the CNIL reminds us that " operators who use tracers must be able to prove that they have obtained consent.. " While the RGPD banner is often in place on sites (particularly e-commerce sites), operators are generally less aware of the "personal data" - "cookie acceptance" consistency check.

In terms of substance, the following points are worth keeping an eye on over the coming months or weeks:
- optimize the cookie banner to encourage users to formally accept it
- learning or verifying justification procedures ... or even monitoring and realigning acceptances ... or even internal processes for monitoring the RGPD. On this subject, please consult the RGPD register template of the CNIL

Happy back-to-school and RGPD to all!