Suggestion: supporting the EU cookie law
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In case you are not aware, there is now a law in the EU that websites using cookies must:
- Inform users the site uses cookies
- Inform users what the cookies do
- Obtain users’ consent to use cookies
The Information Commissioner’s Office website has a video and PDF guide on staying in compliance with the law here.
If you wish to see the full e-Privacy Directive, it is Directive 2002/58/EC.
In particular, amendment Directive 2009/136/EC deals with cookies.
There are several plugins for WordPress that tackle the task of compliance. These generally operate by means of a pop-up that informs the user of the use of cookies when they first visit the site, offering them the option to read more information (thus linking to a privacy policy). Occasionally, they will either block the site altogether until the user agrees to use cookies, or disable cookies altogether (although some plugin writers claim this is impossible to do – indeed, it seems hard considering how WordPress works).
Plugins such as Cookie Notice, Cookie Control and Cookie Law Info inform the user of the site’s use of cookies with a pop-up. Most of these plugins do not provide a means to create a privacy policy / list of cookies, although some do. The user is generally left to audit their cookies and write up a privacy policy – quite a daunting task for the average webmaster! Naturally, Legull is a good starting point to achieving this.
You may notice that the ICO use Cookie Control. It started off looking very promising. Sadly, the WordPress plugin seems to have been abandoned by the developers. I have taken to using Cookie Notice, as it is still updated and compatible with 4.1. However, both the ICO and CIVIC have good examples of cookie descriptions in their privacy policies, which may be accessed via the link on Cookie Control on the sites or directly at the above links.
Legull does a good job of explaining what cookies are, but it would be great if it supported the EU cookie law officially. Perhaps there could be an option, much like the “In California?” option for “In EU?” – the description could even suggest the installation of a pop-up cookie notification system to comply with the EU cookie law.
The option to draw up a table explaining all cookies on the site might be a good idea for such an option. I appreciate that auditing cookies might not be possible within the plugin, but a manual entry system would be great!
It’s a shame that WordPress Foundation don’t appear to have made any provisions whatsoever for the EU cookie law – in fact, a moderator has stated in the forums that it’s OUR responsibility to ensure cookies aren’t put onto a user’s computer before they give consent (how?!) and they seem to think we don’t need to explain every cookie. If we, in fact, do need to (as the ICO and CIVIC do in their privacy policies), it would be nice if WordPress and plugin creators explained what cookies do what, to make this process easier.
https://www.ads-software.com/ideas/topic/add-core-functions-to-comply-with-eu-cookie-law/
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