Law 25: Only 30% of Quebec Companies Compliant by September 2024

Axeptio announces that less than 5% of Quebec companies are compliant with Law 25. Axeptio predicts that only 30% of Quebec companies will be compliant with Law 25 by September 2024.

Drawing on the European experience with GDPR in 2018, less than 30% of Quebec companies will actually be compliant with Law 25 by the deadline in September of this year.

Romain Bessuges-Meusy

European company Axeptio, one of the leaders in Consent Management, is entering Quebec with its 2 solutions: Axeptio for Brands and Axeptio for Publishers.

Axeptio's mission is to assist local businesses in creating a positive and enjoyable online consent (cookies) experience, now required by Law 25. This law, recently adopted in Quebec to protect individuals' personal data, allows internet users to authorize or not the use of their data when browsing various websites.

In principle, companies in Quebec must comply with the new law by September 2024, or face fines. However, to date, less than 5% of companies meet the government's requirements, a situation that Axeptio's directors, based in France where a similar law was adopted in 2016 and became effective in 2018, attribute partly to the glaring lack of effective and user-friendly consent solutions for the public, but also to the lack of solutions that are technologically relevant for businesses.

TRUE Compliance with Law 25

In Europe, in 2018, less than 30% (exactly 28%) of companies had adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the time it came into effect on May 25, 2018. Even giants like Google faced fines of 50 million euros for non-transparent personal data processing obtained without valid user consent.

Given that fewer than 5% of Quebec's 255,000 SMEs are currently in compliance with Law 25, and 60% express no genuine intention to comply, it raises pertinent questions.

Why are so few companies meeting the requirements? What factors contribute to their lack of motivation, despite the potential consequences? Axeptio, leveraging over five years of experience in assisting hundreds of companies in France to navigate similar regulatory landscapes, is ideally equipped to shed light on these issues. Their expertise, proven by their success with globally recognized clients, positions them as a key resource in understanding the challenges and hesitations companies face regarding compliance.

Consent: An Enjoyable Experience

Beyond technical challenges, business leaders often cite fear of deterring visitors as a key reason for their reluctance to comply with Law 25. Many companies' compliance banners are cumbersome, cluttered with extraneous legal jargon, and uniformly unappealing, potentially impacting user experience negatively.

Observations in recent years have allowed Axeptio to understand that for mandatory consent experience to be relevant, it must reflect the values and public image of the company and must be positive and as non-binding as possible for the user.

While other solutions use "dark patterns," i.e., a popup that opens in full screen and is difficult to close in most cases, thus holding the user hostage, Axeptio believes that this now necessary consent notion can be deployed in a conversational spirit that invites interaction.

Axeptio is, in fact, the only solution that adopts this vision. The creatives at Axeptio strive daily to make this "obligation" a positive experience for both the visitor and the company.

Many companies mean well but lack proper understanding. They think they're following the law by simply adding a banner to their website, showing a clear need for more education on what compliance really involves.

 But Law 25 goes much further than that; it addresses many security and personal data protection issues that must be addressed more deeply by the company.

Notably, all consent forms must be "stored" to prove, in case of verification, that users have indeed chosen their privacy preferences and, above all, that the website operator respects this choice.

Romain Bessuges-Meusy - Président et co-fondateur Axeptio