Companies find it difficult to implement consent management

Consent management is the basis for legally compliant processing and, above all, the successful use of customer data in marketing, personalization and analysis. Inadequate implementation can result in high fines under the GDPR, as well as warnings. A compliant implementation is feasible with a reasonable concept and effort and, in addition to legal certainty, also creates trust among customers and users.

For the Consent Report 2020, 165 websites from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined and evaluated according to the most important criteria of consent management. Some of the results are sobering.

Poor implementation

In fact, more than 80 percent of companies have a consent management system, but implementation leaves much to be desired in the majority of cases. "An alarming result," says Siegfried Stepke, founder and Managing Director of E-dialog. "Because two years after the introduction of the GDPR and ever-increasing activity by the supervisory authorities, fines and private lawsuits, inadequate implementation can be costly."

One reason for the high number of companies with inadequate implementation may be the fear of losing data. Although this fear is not unfounded, it should be countered in a different way, says Eckart Holzinger, data protection expert at E-Dialog: "Through opt-in optimization and improved communication with those affected. In plain language: by building trust."

The country- and sector-specific differences are also interesting: the only company to achieve full marks was from Austria, while the best Swiss company scored four out of six points. The sectors that scored best were telco, finance and energy - with the tourism industry bringing up the rear.