On 2 March, the ICO released a consultation on the meaning of
consent under the GDPR and, as part of this, published its draft
guidance on consent ("Guidance").
Organisations have an opportunity to respond to the consultation
before 31 March 2017 and the ICO is aiming to publish the final
guidance in May 2017. Note that the Article 29 Working Party is
also scheduled to publish guidance on consent later in 2017. This
article provides a summary of the main themes coming out of the
draft guidance.
Consent under the GDPR
The Guidance says that "the GDPR sets a high standard
for consent, but the biggest change is what this means in practice
for your consent mechanisms". Some elements of the
definition of consent under the GDPR are the same as the definition
under the current Directive – it must still be freely given,
specific and an informed indication signifying agreement. Under the
GDPR the indication signifying agreement must also be
"unambiguous" and involve a "clea
