Cookie banner rules for analytics, by country
Whether analytics needs a cookie banner depends on the country of your visitors, not on where you are. A few countries exempt privacy-friendly audience measurement; most do not. Nvivio in privacy mode sets no cookie and stores nothing on the device, so it needs no banner in any of them.
The cookie rule comes from one EU directive, but every country wrote it into its own law and every regulator reads it in its own way. These pages give, per country, the law, what the regulator has said, and what that means for each analytics tool. The four countries below are the first; more follow.
Countries
Each page answers one question: do I need a cookie banner for analytics there?
What the colours mean
- No exemption: analytics that sets cookies or stores identifiers needs consent
- Tolerated under narrow conditions set by the regulator, not written as an exemption
- An exemption for privacy-friendly audience measurement, in the law or in the regulator's rules
- The sources do not settle it
Frequently asked questions
Why does the answer differ per country?
The cookie rule is article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive, which every EU country wrote into its own law and every regulator reads in its own way. The Netherlands wrote an exemption for analytics into its law; France's regulator wrote one into its guidelines; Belgium and Germany have none. The GDPR, which is the same everywhere, applies on top.
Which rule applies to my site?
The rules of the countries whose residents you measure. A site for Belgian visitors follows Belgian rules, wherever it is hosted; a shop that sells across Europe meets the rules of every country it sells to.
Does Nvivio need a banner anywhere in the EU?
Not in privacy mode: it sets no cookie, stores nothing on the device, never stores the IP address and measures only for you. In cookie mode, which places one first-party cookie, it needs consent in most of Europe.
Will the Digital Omnibus make these pages moot?
It would make the answer the same everywhere: aggregated audience measurement by the site itself or a tool working for it would need no consent in any EU country. The text is not law yet, and each page says what it would change there.
This is general information, not legal advice.