Keeping you compliant with cookie consent
With regulations and guidance on how website owners manage data consent – like the GDPR and E-privacy Directive – changing on a regular basis, your organisation needs up-to-date technology to protect your reputation and avoid the risk of a fine.
CAN’s data consent management platform (CMP) – CAN Accord – is included as part of the advertising technology we provide for our Council Advertising Network partners and is also available FREE to all UK local councils not on our network, in a bid to help the whole sector get compliant.
It is a misunderstanding of how to comply with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR or E-privacy Directive), in particular, that has led to non-compliance in local government (and elsewhere). The regulations state that prior consent is required before any ‘non-essential’ cookies are deployed from a website.
This includes cookies used for analytics or social media.
You do need to take this seriously – serving a Google Analytics cookie before consent is given means you break the PECR for example – but you don’t need to stop serving cookies like these altogether.
They are crucial to understanding your website users, for monitoring campaigns such as for recruitment of foster carers, for planning services so you can make budget savings and for generating income if you wish.
How the consent management platform works
CAN Accord has been specifically designed with public sector websites in mind. It is powered by the well-used, Internet Advertising Bureau-approved, Quantcast CMP solution which you will be familiar with through its consent tool that pops up on a large number of websites.
To this basic tool, we’ve added our own bespoke technology that ‘wraps’ code around tracking tech on a website so ‘non-essential’ cookies are withheld indefinitely until consent is given.
Set-up is easy and quick, and only requires minimal action from your end.
- Firstly, if your website hasn’t yet been scanned for cookie use, request your SiteSCAN report. This will tell you how many and which ‘non-essential’ cookies are being dropped from your website, indicating whether or not you are compliant.
- Our consent management platform – powered by Quantcast – can be added to your website via simple code.
- You then place our separate ‘wrapper’ code into the relevant tech that controls the non-essential cookies identified by your SiteSCAN report.
- When anyone visits your website, the message below will pop up asking them whether they consent to data from non-essential cookies being collected.
“We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as cookies, and process personal data, such as unique identifiers, and standard information sent by a device for personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, and audience insights, as well as to develop and improve products.
“With your permission we and our partners may use precise geo-location data and identification through device scanning. You may click to consent to our and our partners’ processing as described above. Alternatively you may access more detailed information and change your preferences before consenting or to refuse consenting. Please note that some processing of your personal data may not require your consent, but you have a right to object to such processing. Your preferences will apply to this website only.”
- No non-essential cookies will now be served from your website until consent is explicitly given.
Please get in touch for your own version of CAN Accord and instructions on how to use it.
Compliance Countdown is on!
We want to get all UK local councils cookie compliant.
Most councils are inadvertently breaking E-privacy regulations by dropping cookies without consent for analytics and social media. Find out more.