Is Microsoft Clarity GDPR compliant?

What does Microsoft Clarity do?

Free session recording and heatmaps from Microsoft. Free of charge is not free of duties: it records behaviour and transfers it outside the EEA, so it needs consent like any other replay tool.

Does Microsoft Clarity need consent?

Yes. Microsoft Clarity is Session replay, 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 Microsoft Clarity send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Microsoft Clarity 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 Microsoft Clarity?

How do we detect Microsoft Clarity?

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