Compliance
Cookies and PECR Compliance for Websites
When you need consent, when you do not, and how to audit your site and design a fair banner.
- Format
- Length
- 16 pages
- Edition
- 1st edition, November 2026
- Published
- 2 November 2026
- Publisher
- Data Menu
About
About this guide
A practical UK guide to cookies and similar technologies under PECR. It explains the consent rule in regulation 6, the five exceptions including strictly necessary, statistical purposes and appearance, and what each one requires, with a table classifying common website technologies.
It covers what a fair consent banner looks like, cookie walls and consent or pay, how to write a cookie notice, a step-by-step cookie audit, third-party tags and responsibility, and enforcement. Includes a cookie and tag register, a cookie notice skeleton, a banner checklist, consent record fields and an annual review checklist.
General educational guidance written by Data Menu. It is not legal advice.
Contents
What is inside
- The rule in plain EnglishThe PECR rule, what it covers and recent changesp. 4
- Consent and the five exceptionsConsent and the five exceptions in detailp. 5
- What your website probably doesClassifying common website technologies by purposep. 7
- Designing a consent banner that worksBanner design, equal choices, withdrawal and recordsp. 9
- Telling people what you useWhat a cookie notice should sayp. 10
- Running a cookie auditA step-by-step cookie auditp. 11
- Third parties and shared responsibilityThird parties, tag managers and shared responsibilityp. 13
- Enforcement and keeping up to dateEnforcement, a realistic action plan and staying currentp. 14
- Templates and checklistsRegister, cookie notice, banner checklist and review checklistp. 15
Audience
Who it is for
- Website owners
- Marketing and web teams
- Developers
- E-commerce managers
Delivery. After payment you can download the PDF straight away, and we email you a personal link to the same page. Each purchase is a single download, so please save the file somewhere safe when it arrives. If a download is interrupted, you can retry from that page for a few minutes. Our guides are practical, educational material. They are not legal advice. If you need advice on your own situation, speak to a qualified adviser.