UK: Your Cookies Must Comply With The Law, Says the UK ICO

[engine]

UK: Your Cookies Must Comply With The Law, Says the UK ICO [bbc.co.uk]

Websites are being asked to review how they track users ahead of imminent changes to privacy laws.

On 26 May European privacy laws come in to force in the UK which give people more control over what data websites gather about them.

This means changes to what websites can do with cookies - small text files used to log data about repeat visitors.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said sites need to be sure their cookies comply with the law.

If only they knew what they were on about it would be clearer.

[aspdaddy]

Well these new privacy regulations came into effect 26 May 2011.

UK Websites must now get explicit (opt-in) permission from visitors before using cookies. The ICO can also audit your web servers without gaining permission from service providers.

The ICO has stated they will not fine companies for the next 12 months so long as they can show evidence of progress towards compliance. Fines can be up to £500,000.

Can anyone point me to a compliant website ?

[g1smd]

Not even the ICO website is compliant.

This law targets the wrong problem. It should not be something that millions of websites have to comply with. This should be down to the dozen or so browser makers being forced to include better cookie management tools in every browser.

[dstiles]

Agreed, it should be browser-based: that is the ONLY possible way. People have been saying that for years!

Also: define "cookie" - is it all cookies or permanent ones only, for example? What about temporary / session cookies, which as far as I know cannot be suspended at all on IIS sites (or if they can it's allways or never).

Apart from that, there are an awful lot of web sites that fall outside the UK jurisdiction - there's that little country USA, for example...

The ICO should instead buckle down to preventing things like DPI and other serious privacy issues that WE can do nothing about, either as users or webmasters.