Is Wistia GDPR compliant?

What does Wistia do?

Business video hosting with detailed viewing analytics. Those analytics are the point of the product, which means an identifier is stored and consent is required.

Does Wistia need consent?

Yes. Wistia 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 Wistia send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Wistia 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 Wistia?

How do we detect Wistia?

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