This month saw two significant milestones in the WordPress community \u2014 the 15th anniversary of the project, and GDPR-related privacy tools coming to WordPress Core. Read on to find out more about this and everything else that happened in the WordPress community in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last Sunday, May 27, WordPress turned 15 years old. This is a noteworthy occasion for an open-source project like WordPress and one well worth celebrating. To mark the occasion, WordPress communities across the world gathered<\/a> for parties and meetups in honor of the milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Altogether, there were 224 events globally, with a few more of those still scheduled<\/a> to take place in some communities \u2014 attend one in your area if you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your city doesn\u2019t have a WordPress meetup group, this is a great opportunity to start one! Learn how with the Meetup Organizer Handbook<\/a>, and join the #community-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In light of recent changes to data privacy regulations in the EU, WordPress Core shipped important updates in the v4.9.6 release<\/a>, giving site owners tools to help them comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is worth noting, however, that WordPress cannot ensure you are compliant \u2014 this is still a site owner\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new privacy tools include a number of features focused on providing privacy and personal data management to all site users \u2014 asking commenters for explicit consent to store their details in a cookie, providing site owners with an easy way to publish a Privacy Policy, and providing data export and erasure tools to all site users that can be extended by plugins to allow the handling of data that they introduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To find out more about these features and the other updates, read the 4.9.6 update guide<\/a>. You can also get involved in contributing to this part of WordPress Core by jumping into the #core-privacy channel in the Making WordPress Slack group<\/a>, and following the Core team blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a similar vein, WordPress.org itself has received an updated Privacy Policy<\/a> to make clear what is being tracked and how your data is handled. Along with that, a Cookie Policy<\/a> has also been added to explain just what is collected and stored in your browser when using the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These policies cover all sites on the WordPress.org network \u2014 including WordPress.org, WordPress.net, WordCamp.org, BuddyPress.org, bbPress.org, and other related domains and subdomains. It\u2019s important to note that this does not mean that anything has changed in terms of data storage; rather that these documents clarify what data is stored and how it is handled.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPrivacy Tools added to WordPress core<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Updates to the WordPress.org Privacy Policy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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