Issues / Violations
This chapter explains various topics around issues or violations that may occur within the compliance monitor.
Auto Acknowledge
Issues can be auto acknowledged to simplify the issue handling process by keeping most of the transparency.
What does it do?
If there is a rule, that allows e.g. a specific cookie to be set on a website, the issue will be auto acknowledged on our side. This may come handy where a cookie policy already defines cookies that are needed to be set before the visitor of the website accepts the cookie banner.
So when an asset is analyzed and, taken the example above, some cookies are detected without consent, issues will be created. All issues will be checked if they match the criteria of a specific rule for auto acknowledging. When there is a match, this issue will not pop up in the "pending" section of the violations, but is moved directly to the "done" section.
It is also tagged as "Auto Acknowledged", and the comment shows the rule that applied to acknowledge this issue.
Of course, when there already exists an acknowledged issue, we will not create a new one, but update the existing one with the "last seen date".
How does it work?
Our service team will take requests from customers who wish to setup a specific rule to keep the issue list clean (according to their compliance definitions).
The information needed should be as specific as possible for the rule e.g.:
- All websites should be allowed to set one or all of the following cookies: PHPSESSID, abcd, xyz
- A form asking for "Name" and "Birth date" is allowed on specific websites
Also the websites, where this rule should be applied can be defined very granular by either
- providing a specific list of assets where we should add this rule
- provide a TAG that is set on assets so we can add this rule
- provide other filters we can use to add this rule to various assets
Issue Handling
There are 2 types of actions, that can bei set to resolve issues:
- Resolve / Acknowledge
- Ignore
Resolve an issue
By resolving an issue, the compliance monitor assumes that the cause has been fixed.
e.g.: If you resolve an issue for a cookie named "XYZ", we assume that this cookie was removed from the website and will not be detected again. If it is still present on the website, and we detect a cookie "XYZ" again on the next scan of the website, we will open a new issue.
Why is a new issue opened?
We create a new issue, because then we have the track record of closed and "reopened" issues. Otherwise it would not be possible to tell, if an issue has been detected and meant to be resolved before.
The consequence is maybe that there are "duplicates" of issues.
How to resolve an issue?
An issue can be resolved by simply using the "Check" button aside the issue entry. This will open up a modal form (title: "Close issue") where it is possible to add a comment for future reference.
e.g.: if you ignore a cookie-issue named "ABC", the system will not create a new issue if a cookie with the name "ABC" is detected again on this website.
After committing with the "Close" button, the issue is marked as resolved and moved to the "Done" Tab.
Alongside with the comment we also store the userID and date when the action happened. That allows further transparency from whom the issue was closed through the compliance monitoring portal.
* Use the check-button to perform an action on an issue
Ignore an issue
When ignoring an issue, the portal assumes that this issue is intended and, in compliance terms, compliant with either the company guidelines and or regulatory guides.
Therefore when we detect an ignored issue again on a website, we will not open a new issue, because it was ignored in the past. The comment feature can be used to take a note on why this decision was made. With any action performed on an issue, the userID and date will be stored, so it can be tracked who decided to close the issue.
How to ignore an issue
Ignoring an issue is as simple as resolving it and follows the same principle. Just use the check-button aside the issue entry. When the modal to close the issue pops up, don't forget to tick the checkbox for ignoring an issue.
* to ignore an issue, just activate the checkbox in the closing modal to do so.