The Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) has issued a fresh warning to organisations to ensure their advertising cookies are compliant with data regulations.

Last November, the ICO issued a warning to 53 of the UK’s top 100 websites, saying that they could face enforcement action if they did not want to make changes to advertising cookies to comply with data protection law.

“We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to our call to action,” Stephen Almond, executive director, regulatory risk at the ICO, said in a blog post. “Of the 53 organisations we contacted, 38 organisations have changed their cookies banners to be compliant and four have committed to reach compliance within the next month.”

Almond said that other companies were looking into alternative solutions “including contextual advertising and subscription models.”

“We expect all websites using advertising cookies or similar technologies to give people a fair choice over whether they consent to the use of such technologies,” Almond added. “Where organisations continue to ignore the law, they can expect to face the consequences.”

The ICO says they will not stop with the top 100 websites, and will continue their cookie crusade to the next 100 websites, and there after.

Almond also announced that the ICO will employ an AI solution to help find non-compliant cookie banners, and will run a hackathon to see how this AI solution can be rolled out.

Recommended reading

• Data Privacy Week: Skills Gap, Budget Constraints Mar Privacy
• Data Privacy Day: Where are We and How Did We Get Here?
• ICO and EU Enter MoU for Data Protection and Privacy Laws

The ICO is advising organisations to take action now to ensure they are compliant with the data regulations in the UK surrounding cookies as they continue to issue letters to organisations found to be in breach.

Advertising, or third-party cookies, are the morsels of data packaged and sold between websites and advertisers to generate behavioral, targeted adverts.

While the UK government’s new Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) bill will change law surrounding cookies, websites will still need to seek consent to use third-party cookies, and must currently make it as simple to opt-in or opt-out of third-party cookies.