Is Tidio GDPR compliant?

What does Tidio do?

Live chat with chatbots aimed at online shops. It loads on every page and keeps a visitor identifier so a conversation survives a reload, which is storage that needs consent.

Does Tidio need consent?

Yes. Tidio 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 Tidio send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Tidio 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 Tidio?

Running Tidio as an AI chatbot?

How do we detect Tidio?

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