Captain Compliance provides a free tool to check if your website is compliant with state, local, and global privacy laws. Things we look for on your website or mobile app is if you’re using a consent management platform also known as a cookie banner and privacy controls. Do you have a proper accept & reject button with options to turn specific types of cookies on and off? If not this would be considered a dark pattern. What about your privacy notice and the last update date? With stringent regulations out of Europe via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the 20+ US state privacy laws from Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Oregon, New Jersey, Maryland, and a handful of others including the first state privacy law the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), ensuring your website complies with these laws is essential to avoid big dollar fines and maintain user trust. There’s also two well known law firms suing and arbitrating claims if your website is not privacy compliant so if you’ve received a notice from Swigart Law Firm over Meta-Pixel Tracking or Pacific Trial Attorneys over a VPPA violation let us know and we can get your website compliant to avoid future legal issues. It’s good to know privacy compliance is not just about avoiding penalties; it’s also a crucial step in building a transparent and trustworthy relationship with your users.
Free Website Privacy Scanner
How to Check if My Website is Privacy Compliant Online
One of the easiest ways to check your website’s privacy compliance is by using a free online website privacy compliance scanner from Captain Compliance a leader in data privacy compliance. Our tools can automatically scan your website for potential privacy violations and provide you with a detailed report outlining the areas that need attention. It’s important to identify issues like:
- Improper cookie implementation: Detecting whether your website uses cookies without explicit user consent.
- Outdated privacy policies: Identifying whether your policy reflects current data privacy regulations and all the new laws recently passed.
- Data collection issues: Highlighting forms or tools collecting data without proper user notifications or consent.
Popular tools that provide insights into your website’s privacy compliance status and offer actionable steps to rectify identified issues is important.
How to Check if My Website is Privacy Compliant with GDPR
GDPR compliance is one of the most comprehensive and challenging areas for website owners. To ensure compliance, you can utilize our free website GDPR compliance checker. These tools focus on identifying potential violations of the GDPR, such as:
- Missing or Inadequate Privacy Policy: Your privacy policy must explicitly state what data is collected, how it is used, who it is shared with, and how users can exercise their rights.
- Lack of Cookie Consent: GDPR requires websites to obtain explicit consent from users before using cookies that track their activity. The consent process must be clear, and users must be able to opt-out easily.
- Absence of a Cookie Policy: This policy should detail the types of cookies used, their purpose, and how users can manage their preferences.
- Missing DSAR or Opt-Out Forms: Users have the right to access, rectify, or erase their personal data (via Data Subject Access Requests, or DSARs) and opt-out of marketing communications.
- Pre-Ticked Checkboxes on Forms: GDPR mandates that users must actively opt-in to receive marketing communications. Pre-ticked checkboxes are considered non-compliant.
- Embedded Videos from YouTube: Embedding videos can enable Google to track users without their knowledge, violating privacy laws.
- Use of Google Fonts: If Google Fonts are loaded directly from Google’s servers, it could lead to unnecessary data sharing, which has privacy implications.
By addressing these issues, you can ensure that your website aligns with GDPR requirements and avoids potential legal challenges.
Free Website GDPR Compliance Checker
We start our report off with a scan of all the cookies on your website. With one of the largest custom built databases of 1st party and 3rd party cookies you can see which tracking technolgies and cookies are on your website. From there we identify data collection and consent issues, cookie setup, consent mechanisms, websites privacy policy, privacy notice, and cookie policy. Our data privacy and compliance superheroes can then provide recommendations for improvement.
Privacy Policy Checker
A privacy policy checker helps ensure your privacy policy is not only comprehensive but also compliant with the most strict privacy regulations like CIPA, GDPR, and CCPA. These tools evaluate whether your policy:
- Clearly states the data collected and its purposes.
- Provides users with information about their rights.
- Details the processes for data access, correction, or deletion.
- Includes information about third-party data sharing or processing.
The adaptive privacy notice generator from Captain Compliance offers privacy policy templates that automatically update with new privacy laws and our team can review your data privacy practices to help you create an accurate privacy notice to be in compliance.
Website Privacy Scanner
Website privacy scanners assess your website’s overall privacy posture and you can do a search manually for cookies through your browser on Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Some cybersecurity tools go beyond basic compliance checks and analyze:
- Data Breaches: Detecting vulnerabilities that could lead to unauthorized access to user data.
- Tracking Technologies: Identifying cookies, pixels, or scripts that collect user information.
- Third-Party Scripts: Scanning for third-party integrations that might not comply with privacy regulations.
GDPR Website Checklist Tool
Website tools that focus specifically on GDPR compliance provide detailed reports outlining the specific articles of the GDPR that your website may be violating. They often include features like:
- Consent management evaluations.
- Analysis of personal data processing activities.
- Recommendations for improving compliance with GDPR guidelines.
Regular use of such tools ensures that your website remains compliant as regulations and interpretations of GDPR evolve. Big tech companies have numerous regulators that sole job is to view their websites around the clock to try and find violations that they can then report.
Website Compliance Check
A website compliance check encompasses a broader range of regulations beyond just privacy. These checks may also assess your website’s:
- Accessibility Compliance: Ensuring your website meets standards like WCAG 2.1 to be accessible to users with disabilities. Anybody who makes their site ADA compliant should absolutely install the software tools from CaptainCompliance.com.
- Anti-Spam Compliance: Checking for adherence to laws like the CAN-SPAM Act or the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.
- Payment Security Standards: Verifying compliance with PCI DSS for websites that process payments.
By leveraging website compliance tools, you can address multiple regulatory areas simultaneously, ensuring a safer and more user-friendly experience for your visitors.
Ensure Your Website is Compliant For Privacy Laws
Ensuring your website’s privacy compliance is a multi-faceted process that requires regular monitoring and updates and we provide one of the only tools that automates the process for you. By utilizing our tools and registering your website for a scan, you can identify potential issues and implement the necessary changes to protect user data, maintain compliance with regulations, and build trust with your audience or have us do the work for you. Staying proactive in these efforts not only safeguards your business from legal and financial risks but also demonstrates your commitment to user privacy.