Websites will be required by law to ask users what data they are consent to have stored about them online from this weekend.
The new EU legislation requires websites ask users for their 'informed consent', and will divide the type of consent into different categories.
A new code of conduct, introduced by the London office of the International Chamber of Commerce, aims to help businesses comply with new EU legislation which comes into force on Sunday. Breaches of the code could cost companies £500,000.
It will introduce four new categories for cookies, which the ICC suggests will be identified with four icons.
The Information Commissioner (ICO) had given British websites a year's grace period to comply with the new legislation, which expires this weekend.
The ICO has recently clarified that websites can rely on "implied consent" for some aspects, so long as sites are satisfied that users understand the overall terms to which they have agreed. The ICO's Dave Evans wrote in a blog post that sites "should not rely on the fact that users might have read a privacy policy that is perhaps hard to find or difficult to understand.In some circumstances, for example where you are collecting sensitive personal data such as health information, you might feel that explicit consent is more appropriate".
The regulations distinguish between cookies that are ‘Strictly necessary’ for a website to function; those necessary for a site to monitor its ‘performance’; cookies that add ‘functionality’ such as remembering a password; and ‘Targeting Cookies’, which collect several pieces of information about users’ browsing habits.
On the launch of the new Guide at a Government event in Whitehall, Stephen Pattison, CEO of ICC UK, said: “Educating consumers about cookies and their uses has to be the first step in complying with the new EU rules”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...s-weekend.html
Cookie consent laws come into force this weekend
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