Is Zendesk GDPR compliant?

What does Zendesk do?

Helpdesk software whose chat widget is embedded on many support pages. The widget sets a long-lived identifier as soon as the page loads, well before any ticket exists.

Does Zendesk need consent?

Yes. Zendesk 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 Zendesk send data outside the EEA?

Yes. Zendesk 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 Zendesk?

Running Zendesk as an AI chatbot?

How do we detect Zendesk?

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