How to implement a Consent Box for contact forms

Before you implement a consent checkbox on your form. Please check if you need a checkbox with this article.

With the introduction of the GDPR, many website owners have added consent checkboxes to their contact forms. This is easy to accomplish, but not always necessary.

When is a consent checkbox required?

Not every webform that collects personal data requires a consent checkbox. A checkbox isn’t required if the only use for the collected data is communicated clearly in the web form. If there may be other uses, then an explicit consent checkbox is required.

If a contact form communicates that data collected will be used solely to contact the user about their request, it does not require an additional consent checkbox. The user is granting explicit consent by submitting the form.

If the data will be used for other purposes as well; for example, it signs the user up for a newsletter, then an explicit consent checkbox would be required.

It would help if you had a consent box in each situation where it is unclear what you’re doing with certain information in your contact form. Also, follow-up e-mails which are not obvious, require a consent box. For instance, you have a contact form that focuses primarily on making an appointment. A consent box could contain “Yes, I would like to receive commercial e-mails” if you want to be able to send commercial e-mails after the follow-up related to making an appointment.

How do I add a consent checkbox?

Some plugins contain functionality that allows you to set up a checkbox. Below you can find a manual to install these consent boxes for the top 3 contact form plugins.

Complianz GDPR can automatically add the consent box for you for both Contact Form 7, WP Forms and Gravity Forms. In these cases, you don’t need to do this manually. 

Contact Form 7

To add a consent checkbox to your Contact Form 7 form, you have to:

1.  Go to Contact -> Contact Forms. Select the form you want to add a consent box too.
2.  Add your text. Such as “Yes, I would like to receive commercial e-mails”. Please check our privacy policy.
3.  Click with your mouse cursor at the beginning of the text and then click the acceptance button.
4.  You will now see some new options. Uncheck by default & click Insert Tag.
5.  Add [/acceptance] to the end of the sentence. This closes the acceptance script. Done!

WPForms

To add a consent box in WPForms, you simply have to do the following steps:

1.  Enable the option “GDPR Enhancements”.
2.  At the option Standard Fields, you will find a field named GDPR Agreement. Add this to your form. Name it and uncheck it by default.
3.  Done!

Gravity Forms

Setting up for Gravity Forms is relatively easy.

1.  Head over to the contact form you would like to edit.
2.  Add a checkbox and adjust it to your needs. Uncheck by default.
3.  Done!