Winoc Coppens, 20minutes, IT Director

Managing consent in the GDPR era: a revolution or evolution

What happened shows first that very little preparation had taken place. IAB’s framework, for example, came too late (with respect to when the GDPR came into effect, on 25th May 2018), which demanded agility and quick reactions from the various partners. The situation especially shows that we have reached the limits of the current cookie system. Let’s not kid ourselves: what has been put in place for now – obtaining and analysing consent – is not enough. We must find an alternative system as a matter of urgency. The industry is already debating some ideas: one example is Geste, which is working on a digital identity project that would be of service to a huge number of publishers.

What is your main preoccupation in these circumstances?

As a media company, our main concern is our readers: we want to be both transparent with how we use data and cause as little disruption as possible, while at the same time obtaining consent from a maximum number of visitors.

What is your view on the solution offered by Commanders Act?

We believe that Commanders Act’s CMP (Consent Management Platform) has 2 advantages. Firstly, since the consent management and TMS (Tag Management System) are combined, maintenance is made infinitely easier. Secondly, it archives all the consent that has been collected, which enables us to conform to the GDPR’s accountability principle. For me, that is a crucial difference. Let’s not forget that this is just the beginning. We have high expectations for privacy management on apps, for example.