With the 6 October deadline just days away for 'cookie' GDPR compliance, a survey carried out by Dmac Media has revealed that 87% of Irish businesses are not aware of the looming cut-off date.

In April this year, the Irish Data Protection Commission released updated guidance on cookie consent for Irish websites.

Irish businesses were given six months to bring their sites in line with these new practices.

However, according to Dave McEvoy of Sligo based web design company, Dmac Media, very little information is available for business owners and most Irish businesses are still in the dark.

From 6 October, website owners could face financial penalties under the GDPR legislation for non-compliance.

Dave McEvoy, Founder of Dmac Media is urging Irish businesses to act now. 

"The Irish Data Protection Commission are stepping up enforcement on October 6th however this change has largely gone under the radar. Irish businesses need clear information about the updates and they need support and guidance to implement them."

Dave and his team surveyed a number of their clients to gauge the awareness of the 'cookie' notifications deadline.

The survey revealed a distinct lack of understanding for businesses that will inadvertently find themselves in breach of the new guidelines next month.

The survey revealed that 72% of companies don’t know if their website is compliant and 13% admitted that their website was not up to date.

15% of respondents said they were fully compliant. However on investigation Dmac Media found that just 1% were actually "compliant in a meaningful way’ with the legislation.

The survey did find that there was good understanding among Irish business owners of what a cookie is with 66% able to define it and what it does.

A cookie is a small text file on a device used to store information. By placing a cookie on a site it allows the website to have a memory of the users’ computer activity. If a user clicks not to accept cookies some features of the website may not be available to them. However, when they click to accept they may unwittingly be agreeing to share their information with a plethora of advertising platforms.