Is X (Twitter) Ads GDPR compliant?

What does X (Twitter) Ads do?

Conversion tracking for X advertising, formerly Twitter. It records site actions against an advertising profile, transfers them outside the EEA, and is never strictly necessary, so it must wait for consent.

Does X (Twitter) Ads need consent?

Yes. X (Twitter) Ads is Advertising, 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 X (Twitter) Ads send data outside the EEA?

Yes. X (Twitter) Ads 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

How do we detect X (Twitter) Ads?

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