The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has updated its Guidelines on GDPR consent to make it clear that neither the use of so-called "cookie walls" (making access to a website conditional on accepting cookies), nor scrolling or swiping through a webpage, can constitute valid consent by individuals to the use of cookies. The Guidelines now include various additional examples in respect of these issues to illustrate these points.
These clarifications should be welcomed by website operators and other organisations which deploy cookies, although it will be interesting to see the extent to which the updated Guidelines actually discourage such practices.
“Guidelines on consent under Regulation 2016/679” were first published in November 2017 by the EDPB’s predecessor, the Article 29 Working Party, and formally adopted in April 2018. The EDPB has now produced a slightly updated version of those Guidelines which, apart from two important clarifications, essentially remain the same. The clarifications appear in the sections of the Guidelines on “Conditionality” and “Unambiguous indication of wishes” and concern, respectively, the validity of consent provided by individuals when interacting with “cookie walls” and the question of scrolling or swiping through a webpage or similar user activity to indicate consent.
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