New Consent Regime for 'Cookies' to Enter Force in the UK

Directive No 2009/136/EC, generally known as the Citizens Rights Directive, which amended article 5(3) of Directive No 2002/58/EC by imposing a new consent regime for “cookies”, required Member States to transpose the changes it brought into national law by May 25, 2011. One year past this due date, the amended UK Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, transposing the New Consent Regime, will enter into force on May 26, 2012, after the expiry of the one-year transition period granted by the UK legislature.

In view of the entry into force of the New Consent Regime in the UK, this Alert Memo recaps the main issues addressed by the Directive with regard to cookies and focuses on how the Directive is being transposed in the UK and France, as well as what the status of transposition is in certain other Member States.