Legal consent prior to conversation (Terms, Privacy, GDPR)

Feature Request to include better compliance for GDPR etc. before conversations.

The problem:
In many jurisdictions, it is a legal requirement to obtain user consent prior to capturing certain information about the user and any subsequent use of that data. Email addresses are an obvious one, governed in the EU by GDPR. There was also an EU AI act launched recently and I’m sure there will be more to come.

I want any pickaxes I deploy to be fully compliant with laws. It’s the right thing to do for users. I’ve had many people ask “How is my data used?”

Potential solution:
Pickaxe provide an option to “switch on” user consent before conversations.

Before a conversation, the user must consent to things like:

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Marketing communications (GDPR)

Obviously, for some pickaxe creators, this might not be required. It should be an optional setting. I suspect in the future this might be a requirement for everyone, prior to engaging with an AI.

It would be great if it worked similarly to Stripe. I have the option to add links to my business’s terms and conditions and privacy policy. These then show up during checkout.

I’d imagine these links can be added to the user’s pickaxe profile.

Note: In my case, I would want this legal compliance on ALL pickaxes. Pickaxes embedded on websites or in studios.

How I’m solving this today:
I have a workaround in place today for pickaxes I embed on websites.

By starting a conversation, you agree to the terms and conditions and our privacy policy, which you can find below.

To begin, respond with your email address. By doing so you consent to marketing communications from tobysinclair.com.

Or if you would prefer not to share, simply begin by answering this question:

2. I include verbiage under the pickaxe with links to the terms and conditions, and privacy policy.

Disclaimer: Welcome to my AI-powered chatbot, TobySinclairAI. This AI is not a substitute for professional coaching. TobySinclairAI is not Toby Sinclair and accuracy can’t be guaranteed. By using this TobySInclairAI you agree to the terms and conditions and our privacy policy.

I’d love to make this even clearer for users and a better UX.

Happy to work together to get this launched. In my view, it’s a must-have to make the platform fully compliant with laws and the right thing to do for users.

8 Likes

Hi @tobyai,

We’ve been thinking a lot about this. It’s tough because many folks have different requirements & terms that they’d like to share with users.

I will say we are moving in the direction of providing more of this functionality in embeds and in the studio.

We’ll keep you updated!

3 Likes

That is great to hear. I know this will be a concern for many “professional” studio creators. Ensuring they comply with various legislation.

Many of my users are asking for this as well so seems like the right thing to do from a user perspective.

2 Likes

I totally agree. I would also like to have the option to let the user opt out of the chat being saved in the backend. A lot of users won’t like the admin to see it all

3 Likes

Just today we added the ability to add custom scripts to your studios. This is still a work in progress, but it should allow for folks to add GDPR compliance popups where needed (as well as tracking scripts if desired).

It’s just one step forward so far but hopefully it helps!

4 Likes

Yes it will help for a lot of needs. Thank U!

Is this in testing or released? I’d love to be able to add code to the head tags to cover GDPR.

Thanks for the speedy development.

Found it. No need to reply thanks!!

1 Like

Great! Could you add the option to other pages too?

Hello,

Where did you find it located? Thanks

Think I found it in the Info Section under How to use Markdowns. Is that correct? Thanks

I can’t find how to do this…

Where is the option to add the GDPR compliance?

I figured it out.

A guide for anyone else looking to do this:

Finding the code

Go into editing your studio

From the left-hand menu select “Content”

Then at the bottom, you’ll see “Custom Code”

Click the button <> Code Injection

Adding the code

The two use cases I have are:

  1. Display a terms and privacy policy to users.
  2. Capture email addresses from folks who visit the studio

To create the pop-up content and capture the email addresses, I use Create Email Marketing Your Audience Will Love - MailerLite

Using this tool I can create a form/pop-up.

I then grab some JavaScript code and enter it into the Header section within Pickaxe.

Examples

Terms and Privacy:

Email Capture (Displays after 5 seconds)

I have many other scenarios I’ll be experimenting with now this feature has been deployed!

Great work Pickaxe team :slight_smile:

If anyone needs help setting this up give me a shout!

4 Likes

I solved this using this: https://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/free-cookie-consent/ to create the code and copy it in the Footer section from the Code Injection field in my Studio.

1 Like