What is prior consent?

Prior consent means non-essential cookies and trackers must stay off until the visitor actively agrees. Consent given after scripts have already loaded is not valid under EU and UK rules, which is why the technical order of operations on a page matters as much as the banner itself.

The technical requirement

Blocking has to happen before execution: analytics tags, pixels, and embeds must be prevented from running until the consent signal says yes. A banner that appears instantly while trackers fire in the background fails this test.

How regulators check

Supervisory authorities test websites by loading them and inspecting which cookies appear before any interaction. Finding advertising or analytics cookies at that point is treated as clear evidence of non-compliance.