Embedded media
Is Trustpilot GDPR compliant?
Trustpilot may only run after the visitor has agreed. It is not strictly necessary for the website to work, so loading it on arrival, before any choice, is the single most common way sites get this wrong.
- Category
- Embedded media
- Needs consent
- Yes
- Leaves the EEA
- No
- Can be self-hosted
- No
- Recognised by
- trustpilot.com
What does Trustpilot do?
Review widgets from a Danish company, so the data stays in the EEA. The widget still loads from a third party and can set identifiers, so treat it as consent-based unless you render the reviews server-side.
Does Trustpilot need consent?
Yes. Trustpilot is Embedded media, 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 Trustpilot send data outside the EEA?
No. Trustpilot keeps processing inside the EEA, which removes the third-country question entirely. You still have to name it as a recipient in your privacy policy.
How do we detect Trustpilot?
We load your page in a real browser as a first-time visitor who clicks nothing, then look at what it contacted. Trustpilot is recognised by requests to trustpilot.com, and we report whether it merely loaded or actually sent data, and whether it set a cookie before any choice was made.
Check your websiteThis describes the service as it is normally deployed. Your own configuration decides what actually happens, which is what a scan of your site shows. Not legal advice.