The ICO has set out the results of its consideration of whether exceptions could be made to the consent requirements in PECR in relation to online advertising.
The ICO states that their preferred approach would “allow some online advertising to be shown to users who have not granted… consent, while retaining appropriate safeguards…. the approach would require the first-party “publisher” site (the online service the user is visiting) to facilitate most of the functionality. ”
“Third-party involvement would still be permitted. However, access to identifiable information would be limited to specific cases within certain criteria, to deliver specific functions and provide independent verification, reducing the risk of information being shared amongst large numbers of third parties.”
The ICO’s preferred approach “would permit the following information to be stored and accessed from a user’s device:
• high level device and platform information (device, OS and browser, but not browser version);
• geolocation information to the city or region level;
• temporal information (date and time of day); and
• contextual information – content the user is viewing, mapped to a broad taxonomy.
The report is not binding on the Government, but does show there is potential for some relaxation in the future.
The full report can be found here
