Is OneTrust GDPR compliant?

What does OneTrust do?

An enterprise consent platform from a US provider, common on international sites. It is necessary for obtaining consent, but the provider itself sits outside the EEA, which an EU-hosted platform avoids.

Does OneTrust need consent?

No consent is needed for OneTrust on its own, because it does not store or read anything on the device beyond what is strictly necessary. That is not a free pass: it must still be named in your privacy policy, and the request itself still reveals the visitor's IP address to the provider.

GDPR Art. 13(1)(e)

Does OneTrust send data outside the EEA?

Yes. OneTrust 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 OneTrust?

How do we detect OneTrust?

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