Is Ada GDPR compliant?

What does Ada do?

An automated support assistant that answers without a human. It loads before any question is asked and, being an AI system talking to people, needs an AI disclosure as well as consent.

Does Ada need consent?

Yes. Ada is Chat, which is never strictly necessary for a website to function. Under ePrivacy Article 5(3), and its national transpositions, storing or reading anything on the device for that purpose requires consent first, and that consent has to be as easy to refuse as it is to give.

ePrivacy Art. 5(3) · TDDDG § 25 (DE) · TKG 2021 § 165(3) (AT) · GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)

Does Ada send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Ada processes data outside the European Economic Area, so you need a transfer mechanism under Chapter V and you have to say so in your privacy policy. In practice this means standard contractual clauses, or a provider certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

GDPR Art. 44 · GDPR Art. 46

What can I use instead of Ada?

How do we detect Ada?

We load your page in a real browser as a first-time visitor who clicks nothing, then look at what it contacted. Ada is recognised by requests to ada.support, and we report whether it merely loaded or actually sent data, and whether it set a cookie before any choice was made.