Customer Privacy API

• Load the Customer Privacy API on the storefront
• Collect and register consent in your app
• Upgrade to the newest version of the Customer Privacy API.

To use the Customer Privacy API, you must load it using loadFeatures as follows:

The second argument to loadFeatures is a callback that indicates that the API has loaded. When invoked without an error, the API is globally available at window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.

To record customer consent, use the setTrackingConsent method:

The 4 supported signals are defined as:

1. Preferences: Cookies that remember customer preferences, such as country or language, to personalize visits to the website.
2. Analytics: Cookies to understand how customers interact with the site.
3. Marketing: Cookies to provide ads and marketing communications based on customer interests.
4. Sale_of_data: Opts the customer out of data sharing / sales.

The GPC signal is automatically collected by the Customer Privacy API and cannot be set through setTrackingConsent.

See the Shopify Cookie Policy for the full list of cookies used by Shopify.

You can set one or more consent signals at once:

You can check the current users' consent at any time by calling the currentVisitorConsent method:

• 'yes' - the current visitor has actively granted consent.
• 'no' - the current visitor has actively denied consent.
• '' (empty string) - the current visitor has not yet granted or denied consent.

Check if a cookie consent banner should be displayed (via visitor IP address):

This is true if consent isn't already set and the visitor is in a region showing consent.

Check if the visitor is in a region showing data sale opt outs.

This is true if the visitor is from a region that requires data sale opt-outs.

When the consent banner is enabled from the Shopify Privacy & Compliance app it renders in the following regions:

• European Economic Area (EEA): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden

• United Kingdom

If you're using an app other than than the Shopify Privacy & Compliance app, then contact the app's developer to understand where the consent banner is rendered.

When the data sale opt out page is enabled, links are shown to visitors from the following US states:

• California
• Virginia
• Connecticut
• Colorado

The Global Privacy Control (GPC) will be honored in accordance with US state laws.

If you're using an app other than than the Shopify Privacy & Compliance app, then contact the app's developer to understand where the the data sales opt outs information is rendered.

You can use the Customer Privacy API to check if you are allowed to process data for “non-essential” purposes. There are two ways to check for permission:

• Call the API to get the current permissions, or
• Use an event listener to respond to consent chan.

The Customer Privacy API offers 4 methods to check if data can be processed for non-essential purposes:

These methods return either true or false and are defined as:

1. preferencesProcessingAllowed: Permission to remember preferences such as language, currency, size, etc.
2. analyticsProcessingAllowed: Permission to store information about how the storefront was used and interactions made on the storefront.
3. firstPartyMarketingAllowed: Permission to collect and process data for marketing, attribution and targeted advertising from the merchant.
4. thirdPartyMarketingAllowed: Permission to collect and share data with third parties to perform marketing, attribution and targeted advertising.

The Customer Privacy API publishes document events when consent change. Use this listener to react to changes in consent over time.

Updates are published only when consent changes, not when the listener is added.

The Customer Privacy API is backwards compatible.

You must decide how to map the consent you collect in your banner to the four consent signals used by Shopify. The following snippet shows the backwards compatibility between the legacy Boolean argument and the new granular argument.

Two methods have been renamed to generalize their use:

Data processing has been separated into granular use. You must decide how to map your processing needs to one of the data processing purposes provided by Shopify.

userCanBeTracked and userDataCanBeSold use the following consent signals to determine if consent has been granted:

• userCanBeTracked: Analytics and marketing both must be accepted (when required)
• userDataCanBeSold: Sale of data must not be rejected

You can use this method to determine if you should show a GDPR banner.

window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.shouldShowGDPRBanner();

This method returns a boolean value that indicates if you should show a GDPR banner.

The response aggregates the visitor’s location, the app user's preference, and whether the visitor has already provided a consent value in the past year.

You can use this method to set a buyer's response to a tracking consent request.

window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.setTrackingConsent(consent: boolean, callback: function);

Request parameters:

Example request:

The following example request shows a JavaScript function that sets consent to true and executes another function to hide the banner. For a complete implementation, refer to Create a cookie compliance banner for your online store.

The API executes the callback function and optionally emits a custom event called trackingConsentAccepted.

Example response:

A successful request returns an empty object:

If there is an error with the request, then an error object is returned:

You can use the Customer Privacy API to check if customers have consented to be tracked and if app users have decided to disallow the sale of visitor data. Your implementation must include a loading pattern to ensure that the API is available. For visitor tracking consent, you should implement a mechanism for listening to consent collection events that can fire asynchronously on the page, to ensure that you don't miss any tracking opportunities.

You can use the following methods for consent collection:

• userCanBeTracked(): boolean - Covers the scenario of tracking a visitor (GDPR).
• userDataCanBeSold(): boolean - Covers the scenario of selling visitor data (CCPA).

If userCanBeTracked is set to false, then the following behaviour must be observed:

• No persistent, non-essential cookies should be set
• No data should be emitted to third-party platforms

If userDataCanBeSold is set to false, then the following behaviour must be observed:

• Data can be emitted (if tracking isn't blocked)
• Data can't be sold to third-parties

If the Customer Privacy API isn't available, then tracking and data emission can proceed. All methods should be preceded with a check that the API is available before checking that tracking or sale of data is blocked.

Example API check:

if (!window.Shopify.customerPrivacy || window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.userCanBeTracked()) { startTracking() }

You can use this method to return whether the storefront visitor has consented to be tracked.

window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.userCanBeTracked();

The API returns a boolean value that indicates whether a user can be tracked.

The response aggregates the visitor’s consent and location, as well as the app user's preference.

A trackingConsentAccepted event fires when positive tracking consent is collected on the page.

By listening for this event and calling your custom start tracking method when it fires, you avoid any possible data loss due to missing asynchronous consent collection.

Use this method to determine if the app user has explicitly disallowed selling data to third parties for visitors located in California or Virginia. This enables compliance with the CCPA and VCDPA.

window.Shopify.customerPrivacy.userDataCanBeSold();

The API returns a Boolean value indicating whether data can be sold to third parties for visitors located in California (CA) or Virginia (VA).

The API response aggregates the app user's preferences and the visitor’s location. However, you can't use the API to enable visitors to opt-out of the sale of their data.