How to Choose Your GDPR / CCPA Compliance Plugin in 2024?

Most companies collect personal data while their customers are shopping and browsing online to create personalized experiences. However, collecting this data without the consumer’s consent is a threat both in terms of regulatory compliance and brand reputation. 

Companies that collect and process customer data for commercial purposes are obliged to privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. These regulations have significant requirements on companies that process and collect personal data, whether the information is gathered online or offline. If you don’t directly collect consumers’ data, you should make sure that the tools and services you use also don’t collect and store users’ data.

In this article, we’ll provide a quick overview of GDPR and CCPA and we’ll explore the top GDPR & CCPA compliance plugins of 2024.

GDPR and CCPA Overview: obligations, scope, and differences

• Both the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) aim to provide strong protection for personal data. 

• Both GDPR and CCPA protect natural persons’ data ( who are considered subject to rights & obligations). However, legal persons are not subject to the GDPR and CCPA.

Differences / Scope 

GDPR

GDPR went into action on 25 May 2018. It applies to businesses that collect, use, or share personal data, whether it is carried out online or offline. Businesses and nonprofits are subject to GDPR if they: 

• have an establishment in the EU which processes personal data, or
• are established outside the EU, but provide goods and services to individuals in the EU, whether paid or free and track consumer data in the EU.

CCPA

• Unlike GDPR, the CCPA (introduced in 2018) doesn’t protect all data subjects (e.g. nonresidents). It only applies to individuals who are California residents.
• For-profit businesses that are established in California and have an annual revenue >$25 million are subject to the CCPA obligations.
• As we mentioned above, the GDPR also applies to businesses or organizations not established in the EU if they have activity in the EU. On the CCPA side, if they are established outside of California but collect or sell personal information from consumers in California, they must comply with the CCPA.

Top 4 main features to consider when choosing a GDPR / CCPA compliance plugin

1. GDPR / CCPA compliance: As we mentioned above, if you have a website or a business that collects the personal data of users, you must make your website GDPR / CCPA compliant. 

2. Cookie policy: If you run a business that is subject to GDPR or CCPA (see the Differences / Scope), you are required to have a privacy policy on your website. You can reassure your website’s visitors that you protect their privacy by creating a privacy policy. It informs users about what kind of information you collect, how their data will be used, and who has access to it.

3. Cookie consent banner: It provides options for users to ‘Accept’ and ‘Reject’ cookie policy.  GDPR states that it is illegal to collect user data without that person’s consent. You must provide users the option to accept or decline cookies if your website uses them to collect personal data about your visitors. For strictly necessary cookies, it is not required as they do not gather users’ personal data.

4. Geo-targeting: It allows website owners to geographically target their cookie compliance and cookie banner as per your visitor’s location. Only visitors from the selected countries and regions will see cookies and consent banners.

List of most popular GDPR / CCPA compliance plugins

If you have any questions regarding the topic, feel free to contact us: