Oswestry Solicitor criticises ICO as new Cookie regulations crumble into confusion
An Oswestry solicitor has criticised the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for changing the rules at the twelfth hour about new website regulations that came into force last Saturday which require businesses to obtain permission from users before applying cookies.
Nick Kennan, a Solicitor with leading Shropshire and North Wales law firm GHP Legal said: “From this week the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will start enforcing the changes to the cookie law following a 12 month lead-in to allow website owners to make the necessary changes and arrangements.
“The original guidelines issued by the ICO stated that website owners must obtain express consent from site users in respect of cookie use. This could have involved a lot of work for those who complied. But on Friday, the day before the new regulations became enforceable, the ICO did an about turn and issued updated guidelines stating that implied consent through non-explicit means can be taken as valid consent.
“I am sure this has angered a lot of conscientious website owners. There may however be others who are less conscientious and who did nothing at all about obtaining even implied consent for using cookies. To those people I would say do something now, because firms found to be in serious breach of the new regulations could face fines of up to £500,000.”
