PDMS partners with Usercentrics to provide Cookie Consent Management solution

PDMS is now implementing Usercentrics, a leading cookie consent management solution on all of our client’s websites.

Combining legal compliance with great usability and an extensive feature set, Usercentrics provides peace of mind to busy organisations.

What are cookies?

Cookies are usually small text files that are stored on your computer. They are created when you visit a website that uses cookies to track your movements within the site. They are used to recognise your device and streamline your experiences by helping you resume where you left off, remember your login, or use your preferences and behaviour to display more relevant content. 

Without cookies you'd have to login every time you visit a site, or add items back into your cart if you accidentally close the window. You'd be displayed content that is not relevant to you, and websites would not perform as well as they normally do.

All of this makes cookies an integral part of your browsing experience, which is why it's important that you have full control of them, and that you understand which are worth keeping - and which are not!

Cookie consent – the legal requirement

As you will be aware, cookie consent is a requirement to ensure compliance with GDPR and other international regulations.  The EU ePrivacy Directive requires that users provide consent before cookies or trackers are placed, except for those that are strictly necessary for the functioning of the website.  This consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous, and website owners must:

• tell people the cookies are there
• explain what the cookies are doing and why
• get the person’s consent to store a cookie on their device

Many cookie consent solutions currently do not comply with the legal requirements as they do provide the user with full control. The consent must be tag or cookie specific, which means the user must know at a granular level which data record and for which third-party provider they are granting or withdrawing their consent.  The commonly found “I agree to cookies” consent does not fulfill this requirement.

Why Usercentrics?

PDMS recently undertook technical and legal research into the topic of cookie consent with a view to recommending the best solution to our clients. 

We are now recommending “Usercentrics” as we believe it provides the best cookie consent option for our client’s websites.  Usercentrics combines legal compliance with privacy regulations and great usability that helps to maximise both transparency and opt-in rates.

The Usercentrics consent management platform:

• Collects consents in accordance with the law – complies with GDPR, ECJ, IAB Transparency and Consent Framework
• Provides granular and detailed information – important requirements for valid consent
• Is compatible with all of the leading marketing tools for analytics etc. e.g. Google Analytics, Facebook Pixels, Hotjar etc.
• Is fully customisable and blends in with your brand
• Provides an in-depth audit trail
• Supports multiple languages

Many of the features listed above are commonly provided by many other cookie consent tools. However, there are additional features of Usercentrics that provide considerable added value:

• Analytics & reporting - Usercentrics also allows you to monitor your opt-in and opt-out rates. This is a great tool for keeping your marketing department informed by painting a clear picture of your website traffic.
• Automatic data monitoring – Usercentrics incorporates a Data Processing Scanner (DPS Scanner) for additional peace of mind. Drawing on Usercentrics vast database of cookies, the DPS Scanner collects and aggregates data on any third-party requests and produces alerts if any third-party technology is being triggered which is not yet included in your consent management platform.
• Dynamic Privacy Policy updating – To ensure the information in your Consent Management Platform is in sync with your privacy policy, whenever something is changed in the CMP it will be dynamically updated in your privacy policy as well.

The Usercentrics consent management platform can be integrated any popular content management system. As a market-leading solution, currently processing over a billion consents per day, Usercentrics is investing heavily in ongoing product development and will be at the forefront of cookie consent management, helping your organisation stay abreast of evolving data protection/privacy regulations. 

PDMS and Usercentrics – making compliance easier

We can help ensure that your website complies with the relevant regulations, as well as providing an ongoing service to remove the headache of ongoing compliance.  Through our partnership with Usercentrics, we can implement the solution on your behalf – helping to ensure that everything is set up correctly and providing you with full access to review your data and analytics.

If you’d like to know more about how we can help you with Cookie consent, we’d be happy to have a chat