Following on from the ICO's recent admission around its cookie consent mechanism (for further details see our previous post here), the ICO website was down for a period of time at the end of last week. But now it is back and with a new and "improved" cookie consent mechanism (see here).
Key points to note:
- There is no more implied consent by continued browsing – website users have to save and close the cookie notice in order to gain access to the ICO website
- The notice contemplates two different types of cookie (necessary and analytics) – necessary cookies are defaulted to "on" and analytics cookies are defaulted to "off"
- The ICO's cookie policy continues to adopt a tabular approach – specifying and explaining each cookie used on the website and its purpose
It is worth noting that the ICO website does not appear to use many cookies and so the mechanism adopted is relatively simple. In particular, the ICO does not use cookies for personalised ads or similar purposes, the area that seems to be so much in the focus of the regulators at the moment. As a result, the ICO's adopted approach may only be useful as a template to those organisations hosting simple, informational websites. However, the regulator is also promising cookie guidance this week so keep watching this space.
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