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Really good stuff! It’s kind of sad to see the cookie warning on first visit to an NHS page—from an accessibility point of view. If you’re sick and maybe older
by mbrock 8y ago
Really good stuff!
It’s kind of sad to see the cookie warning on first visit to an NHS page—from an accessibility point of view. If you’re sick and maybe older and you go to find some health information, the first thing you want to see isn’t “We’ve placed some small files on your computer called cookies. Are you okay with that?” It’s an almost nonsensical, bizarre question for anyone who isn’t an IT expert.
- b2ccb2 8y agoThe workaround would be pretty simple to implement. Cookies are only needed when you need 'state' between the client and server, so only serve cookies when you need state. The very first instance of state should be the very first instance of a cookie warning. Of course, once you have implemented cookie based tracking, this doesn't work anymore.
- VonGallifrey 8y agoIt is a lot more simpler then that actually. The law does not say that you need consent for all cookies, you just need consent for some types of cookies. If it is just between the user and your own server for some necessary state information you dont need this dialog. If they removed the Social Media and Third Party tracking cookies they could remove the dialog completely.
- deanclatworthy 8y agoUnfortunately it’s the law. But I completely agree. I’d argue it’s inaccessible for everyone too.
- VonGallifrey 8y agoThey could have avoided that easily by not including Social Media and Third Party cookies.
- deanclatworthy 8y agoAn organisation as large as the NHS/UK GOV is not going to have their own in-house analytics solutions. And I believe even that would require a cookie policy to be displayed under the (current) legislation.
- VonGallifrey 8y agoOr alternatively they could just not do any tracking or analytics based purely on the server logs. There is always a choice. It is not the law that makes them display this, it is their choices that made them need to comply to the law.
- deanclatworthy 8y agoYou can't do any form of user testing or heatmaps with server logs. And whilst real user testing is undertaken, sometimes the passive collection of heatmap data etc. is best done in an unbiased environment (i.e. you don't know you are being tested).
- RodgerTheGreat 8y agoThere are plenty of open-source analytics tools that you can self-host, like Open Web Analytics. You can gather all the information you need for usability testing without handing it over to a third party and compromising the privacy of your users.
- deanclatworthy 8y agoOf course they can, but there is always a cost of hosting your own infra. There is a strong argument for the gov to be doing this in house, but I suspect it's not 100% the case and individual departments have the freedom to put their own tracking codes on their own site.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoWhat if they ask for permission in a less intrusive way? Like I dunno, send people an e-mail after using the site once with clear information?
- onli 8y agoWhich law? It's not what the GDPR is requiring.
- deanclatworthy 8y agoEU cookie law [1]. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32002L0058:EN:HTML https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX...
- onli 8y agoThat does require no such thing. See the comment below to tgb
- tgb 8y agoThis one: http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm I'm surprised you assumed it was GDPR since the cookie popups have been around for years and are hard to miss.
- onli 8y agoBecause they collide. GDPR regulates how to work with private information and makes it absolutely clear that cookie popup informing the user that a cookie was already set is not sufficient. But if the cookie is not used for privacy relevant user tracking, then a popup is not necessary in neither regulation. Those cookie popups have been a misinterpretation in the first place, the general recommendation for them already redacted by the one data protection agency that first formulated that consequence as requirement based on the regulation from way back then. They are completely out of date now. Note also how the site you link does not require them - it instead completely blocks the site when cookies are not allowed by the user, which is a different beast.
- antihero 8y agoYeah, it's an incredibly dumb law.
- HenryBemis 8y agoIt is also unecessary to have cookies on a gov healthcare website. They can measure/track/count traffic and statistics from their servers' logs and run cookies-free environments. Exactly to reduce stress and confusion to people who lack these basic IT skills.
- kristianc 8y ago> Exactly to reduce stress and confusion to people who lack these basic IT skills. Have you run user testing to see if people who lack IT skills find cookie warnings confusing? Do you think it would have been missed by Gov.UK's own user testing? If you don't like tracking you can come out and say that rather than couch it in the language of some voiceless 'confused' IT user. You'd likely be on former ground too - as the Gov.UK site sets more or less a gold standard for usability. Besides that, even if you tracked using server logs you are likely using PII so would still need the same warning anyway.
- Quarrelsome 8y agoI don't think the law is dumb but the implementation certainly is. The settings should be incorporated into the browser so your browser tells the site what your preferences are. Then you only have to set them once.