Is your website GDPR and CCPA compliant? Are you complying with strict regulations that require your website to protect the personal data and privacy of citizens in European Union (EU) countries and in California? In this post, I'll show you how to quickly and easily make your WordPress website compliant with GDPR and CCPA.
What Is GPDR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law that took effect on 25 May 2018. The goal of GDPR is to:
- ensure the protection of data and privacy of EU individuals
- give EU individuals control over their personal data
- change the data privacy approach of organizations across the world
Websites around the world that collect data on individuals in European Union (EU) countries need to comply with strict new rules around protecting customer data. GDPR compliance requires that you give visitors choice over whether they want cookies or not and also how they want their data to be handled.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself so you can be sure you are compliant.
- Do you run a website that individuals in the EU have access to?
- Do you collect personal data or use cookies or tracking tools like Facebook Pixel?
- Do you use Google Analytics or anything else to store personal data for statistical purposes?
- Do you collect users' data using forms like Contact Form 7?
- Do you use addons like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to create mailing lists?
- Do you use live chat support or a helpdesk to help visitors on your website?
You don't have to be a legal expert to make your website GDPR compliant. GDPR plugins make it easy.
What Is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)?
The state of California also has a privacy and data protection law—this is called CCPA. Here are some requirements of CCPA:
- cookie consent banner
- privacy policy with links to the opt-out facility, privacy policy, and Do Not Sell My Information Page
- age verification
- do not sell my information document
- my account form CCPA disclaimer
Some plugins make sure you comply with both GDPR and CCPA. You will find these plugins on both Envato Elements and CodeCanyon.
Before we look at the WordPress GDPR compliance plugins, let's explore the benefits of a monthly subscription to Envato Elements.
Envato Elements: Unlimited Downloads
Envato Elements offers millions of digital assets, including WordPress themes and plugins, including GDPR plugins, all with a single subscription. The subscription is covered by simple commercial licensing that gives you the right to use the item in a broad variety of projects, including those of a commercial nature.
Sign up today and start creating!
GDPR Plugins on Envato Elements
1. Lightweight Cookie Notice
Lightweight Cookie Notice allows you to display a cookie notice on your website so you can comply with GDPR rules. It shows a list of cookies on your cookie notice, pages, and posts. It also shows a list of vendors. The plugin has a very accurate geolocation service, which makes it easy to detect the countries in which your visitors are located so you can be on the right side of the GDPR law. Lightweight Cookie Notice is compatible with a variety of cache plugins.
2. Ninja GDPR Compliance for WordPress
This plugin complies with seven key features of GDPR compliance:
- Cookie consent: informs users about cookie use and gets their consent.
- Term and Conditions consent: takes users automatically to your Terms and Conditions page to get their consent.
- Privacy Policy consent: takes users automatically to your Privacy Policy page and gets their consent.
- Request Data Archive: collects data access requests and automatically informs the admin.
- Forget me form: create a form for users to request for their stored data to be deleted and automatically notify the website admin.
- Data Rectification: allow users to request their stored data to be rectified.
- Data Breach Notification: notify data breaches to all users as required by law.
- Control EU Traffic: display cookie popup for EU users only or refuse them.
The Ninja GDPR Compliance for WordPress plugin, which is also available on CodeCanyon, is compatible with most popular plugins related to GDPR requirements: WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Mailchimp, Facebook Pixel, and Google Analytics.
GDPR Plugins on CodeCanyon
3. Ultimate GDPR and CCPA Compliance Toolkit for WordPress
Ultimate GDPR and CCPA Compliance Toolkit for WordPress allows you to comply with all GDPR requirements. It comes with dedicated forms for personal data access, right to be forgotten, policy consent, cookie consent, service consent, pseudonymization, and more. It has a one-click cookie detector to help you discover what cookies your website is using. You can block any third-party cookies you don't need.
You also have the option to display a cookie consent box in the header so it doesn't feel intrusive to users. You can customize your cookie boxes to match the look of your website by choosing from a whopping 34 styles and over 15 cookie notice skins.
This plugin is designed to be compatible with a range of popular themes, such as Divi and Avada, as well as other plugins and tools including Contact Form 7, QuForm, Gravity Forms, Facebook Pixel, BuddyPress, Google Analytics, WPBakery Page Builder, MailPoet, Mailstar, Polylang, Wordfence, and more.
4. WeePie Cookie Allow
WeePie Cookie Allow makes it possible for your website to fully comply with the GDPR and CCPA.
GDPR compliance features include:
- cookie information bar or box with the possibility of adding a link to your cookie policy page
- icon to open the cookie settings pop-up that includes buttons to accept or decline cookies
- change cookie settings
- blocking privacy-sensitive or third-party cookies before consent
- consent logging
- cookie consent only for EU visitors (disable cookie consent bar/box for non-EU visitors)
CCPA compliance features include:
- show a bar/box with a notice at collection
- add a link to your Do Not Sell My Personal Information (DNSMPI) page inside your Notice of Collection text
- opt out of placing third-party cookies
Third-party cookies are automatically blocked.
5. WordPress GDPR and CCPA
With WordPress GDPR, your website can easily be brought into compliance with the GDPR regulations. Features of this all-in-one GDPR compliance plugin include:
- forget me: right to be forgotten forms
- data breach notifications
- request data archive
- cookie popup
- contact DPO
- newsletter unsubscribe
The plugin integrates with WooCommerce, Mailster, BuddyPress, Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, Hot Jar, Contact Form 7, Flamingo DB, and other custom integrations. You can use this plugin with different languages by integrating it with WPML.
6. GDPR Solution: Bookly Customer Cabinet (Add-on)
If you use Bookly PRO on your website, then this plugin will allow you to comply with GDPR requirements by providing customers with the possibility to access, manage, and delete their personal details and appointments list in a user account.
Let your customers return to your website at any time to manage their profile details and bookings that have been made. They’ll be able to:
- update the name, email address, phone number, and customer information
- delete the customer’s profile
- view appointment history
- view appointment details
- reschedule or cancel an appointment
7. Cookie Plus GDPR: Master Popups Addon
Cookie Plus GDPR is a complete GDPR Cookie consent solution for your WordPress website. It automatically blocks all non-essential cookies from your website so no plugin or script will be able to add cookies in the user’s browser without consent. Cookies are added after the user has accepted cookies.
It comes eight cookie popup form templates, each includes five cookie categories that visitors can activate or deactivate. You can choose to show your consent popups of cookies only to users in EU countries.
The plugin is easily integrated with forms, plugins, and themes used to collected users' data. These include WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WordPress comments, BuddyPress, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, DoubleClick, and more.
Integrate the Total GDPR Compliance plugin on your website and become totally GDPR-compliant. The plugin is fully responsive. You have 30 customizable consent templates to choose from. Each template has a choice of three layouts: cookie bar, popup cookie, and floating cookie. It also includes a "Privacy Policies" consent button and a “Terms & conditions" consent button.
The plugin comes with a consent box for different WordPress sections such as the default WordPress login, registration, and comment submission, along with third-party plugins such as WooCommerce and Contact Form 7.
GDPR Basics
Data collection is part and parcel of our daily lives. Our online activities generate data that is tracked, stored, parsed, packaged, shared, and sold. This data is used to create individual profiles that are quite often misused. Having control over our data and privacy is now more important than ever.
What Is GDPR?
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European digital privacy law designed to give EU individuals more control over their personal data.
Personal Data, Privacy by Design, Consent
Here are the key principles of GPDR:
- Businesses and websites offering goods and services to individuals in the EU or monitoring the behavior of EU individuals have direct responsibility for securing the individual data in their possession.
- All businesses and websites have the responsibility to implement appropriate privacy policies.
- IP addresses, geolocations, device identifiers, and other online identifiers constitute personal data that can be used to identify individuals.
- Pseudonymisation of personal data will minimize the risk of individuals being singled out or profiled during processing. Genetic data and biometric data are categorized as sensitive data in need of greater protection. Religious beliefs, web cookies, and political opinions can also be personal data.
Under GDPR, EU individuals have the following rights:
- to know what information about them has been collected
- to know how their data is collected and used
- to request changes to their data where there are mistakes
- to request their data to be deleted
- to refuse any data processing requests
Under GDPR, all businesses, including your blog and websites, should do the following:
- have a privacy policy that explains to users how their information is used
- ask in clear and simple language for users' consent before processing their data
- send data breach notifications to users when it happens
Become GDPR-Compliant Now!
Put the control of data and privacy in your visitors' hands with GDPR compliance plugins from Envato Elements and CodeCanyon.
If you're thinking of offering better support services for your customers, these posts will guide you to some of the best plugins for this purpose available on CodeCanyon. Remember, you will also need to give your customers a choice on how they want their data handled.
