Clarity: Cookie Consent Requirements - EEA, UK & Switzerland.

Dec 18, 2024

3 min read

Avatar of Calvin Park
Calvin Park

Microsoft have announced breaking changes to Clarity starting in early 2025 for users in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK) and Switzerland.

In this blog post, we will explore the changes and solutions.

What is Clarity?

Microsoft Clarity is a free tool that helps website owners understand how visitors use their site. It provides session recordings, heatmaps, and other insights to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, it integrates with SharePoint, which can be useful for internal communications within an organisation, making it easier gain deeper insights on user interactions in SharePoint.

Breaking Changes

See below a screenshot snippet of the email update from Microsoft Clarity on Wednesday 18th of December 2024 at 15:28:

Screenshot reads: "Action Required: you will need to call the Clarity Consent API to collect and manage user consent for any sessions that are coming from the EEA, UK and Switzerland - Rollout Status: we will enforce this requirement across the European region by early 2025. Please perform the necessary action above to minimize impact to your site"
Screenshot reads: "Action Required: you will need to call the Clarity Consent API to collect and manage user consent for any sessions that are coming from the EEA, UK and Switzerland - Rollout Status: we will enforce this requirement across the European region by early 2025. Please perform the necessary action above to minimize impact to your site"

Microsoft have announced that in early 2025 Clarity will require

explicit user consent is required before placing cookies on their device

and

Clarity relies on cookies to connect page views into sessions, which are critical for many of Clarity’s features.

This is due to "local regulations" such as privacy laws such as:

These laws govern how personal information is allowed to be used.


WARNING

While the requirement for consent has already been the responsibility of website and SharePoint administrators, Microsoft plan to no longer automatically set cookies without intervention.


This causes existing installations of Clarity without a user facing consent manager not function as expected for the highlighted markets.


TIP

You can learn more about how Clarity uses Cookies at: Cookie Consent - Understand your customers | Microsoft Clarity Blog.


Clarity does not include a user driven consent manager. This leaves the responsibility to website and SharePoint administrators to implement their own consent management of choice to trigger Clarity.

SharePoint integration impact

Screenshot of Microsoft Clarity in the SharePoint Store
Screenshot of Microsoft Clarity in the SharePoint Store

The Clarity for SharePoint integration also does not feature a consent manager. SharePoint administrators (with users in the EEA, UK, Switzerland) will be required to implement one to ensure functionality.


TIP

Many consent managers are not designed to work with SharePoint and custom SharePoint modifications require special tooling. Get Help with SharePoint Development.

Solutions

To ensure that Clarity continues to work as expected for the EEA, UK and Switzerland markets, follow the instructions below.

Websites

Website administrators should implement a cookie consent manager on their website to gain explicit user consent to trigger Clarity.

Microsoft have provided documentation on how your consent manager should trigger Clarity at: Clarity client API | Microsoft Learn.

SharePoint

SharePoint administrators should implement a cookie consent manager to gain explicit user consent to trigger Clarity. Microsoft recommends that modifications to SharePoint use the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) instead of custom scripts: An alternative to custom script.


TIP

If you want to get started Custom Development in SharePoint, then get in touch. Get help with Custom Development.


TIP

Stay ahead with the ever-changing Microsoft 365 platform. Get Expert Support now.

This follows a similar move that Google announced with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and more Alphabet offerings will also require explicit consent for EEA users.

You can learn more at Google's GA4 help pages such as: [GA4] Verify and update consent settings in Google Analytics

ClaritySharePoint
Share
Disclaimer: Microsoft 365 and other SaaS platforms are ever green and can be changed without notice. Content provided here is believed to be correct at time of publication. You should verify accuracy and applicability, it is provided without warranty, for more details visit our Terms of Service.