Is Intercom GDPR compliant?

What does Intercom do?

Support chat and in-app messaging. The widget loads for every visitor, sets identifiers and can tie a conversation to a known contact, so it is not necessary until someone actually wants to chat.

Does Intercom need consent?

Yes. Intercom 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 Intercom send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Intercom 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 Intercom?

Running Intercom as an AI chatbot?

How do we detect Intercom?

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