France proposes stricter email tracking consent rules

France's data protection regulator released draft recommendations on June 12, 2025, establishing comprehensive rules for email tracking pixels that could reshape digital marketing practices across the country. The Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) opened a public consultation period through July 24, 2025, inviting industry feedback on regulations that would significantly impact how organizations monitor email engagement.

According to the CNIL documentation, the initiative responds to "significant growth" in invisible tracking pixel usage within electronic communications over recent years. These technical tools serve various purposes including delivery confirmation, audience measurement, and personalized communication based on user interests. The timing coincides with increased complaints from individuals concerned about email surveillance practices.

The European Data Protection Board published guidelines 2/2023 in October 2024 regarding the technical scope of Article 5, paragraph 3, of the ePrivacy Directive. These guidelines reinforced the application of France's Article 82 requirements to email tracking pixels. The CNIL's draft recommendation aims to clarify implementation within email environments while accounting for technological and operational specificities.

Summary

Who: France's Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) proposes regulations affecting organizations using email tracking pixels, including businesses, associations, and public entities.

What: Draft recommendations requiring explicit consent for most email tracking activities while exempting security measures and anonymous global statistics. Organizations must implement consent collection mechanisms and withdrawal options.

When: Public consultation opened June 12, 2025, closing July 24, 2025, with final recommendations expected later in 2025.

Where: France initially, with potential influence across European Union member states implementing similar privacy frameworks.

Why: Responding to significant growth in email tracking usage and increasing individual complaints about surveillance practices in personal communication spaces.

The proposed framework distinguishes between tracking purposes requiring explicit consent and those exempted from consent requirements. Individual measurement and analysis of email open rates for campaign performance evaluation would necessitate user consent. Similarly, personalizing communications based on recipient interests and creating user profiles for targeting across other contexts would require explicit permission.

Campaign optimization activities fall under consent requirements when tracking individual engagement patterns. The draft specifically mentions adjusting message frequency or stopping sends to preserve deliverability rates as activities requiring consent. Fraud detection and analysis would also require user permission when identifying unusual or mass email opening patterns.

Certain activities could operate without consent under the proposed rules. Security measures for user authentication would remain exempt from consent requirements. Global email open rate measurement for identifying deliverability issues could proceed without explicit permission, provided the tracking produces anonymous statistics and avoids individualized measurement.

The CNIL recommends using undifferentiated tracking pixels - identical across all recipients within single campaigns - for consent-exempt activities. This exemption applies only to emails requested by users or related to services they have requested.

Technical implementation requirements specify how organizations must handle consent collection. The authority suggests gathering consent during email address collection rather than through subsequent email messages. When obtaining consent through emails, the first message must contain no tracking devices subject to consent requirements.

Consent collection emails should include links directing recipients to preference management pages. The CNIL warns against automatic link preloading by email clients that could record involuntary consent. Organizations must use unique tracking links per recipient to verify authentic consent from address holders.

The draft establishes strict consent withdrawal mechanisms. Each email containing tracking pixels must include footer links allowing recipients to withdraw consent without additional actions. These withdrawal links should redirect to pages enabling consent revocation without requiring manual email address entry.

Processing responsibility varies based on specific arrangements between parties. Email senders remain responsible for tracking operations even when outsourcing to service providers. Email service providers typically function as data processors when implementing tracking for sender accounts. List rental providers may share processing responsibility when using pixels for their own purposes, such as improving list quality or deliverability.

Technology providers supplying tracking pixels face different qualification depending on their data usage. When processing data exclusively for senders, they operate as processors. However, when using collected data for their own purposes like solution improvement, they may become joint controllers with senders.

Email service providers maintain technical roles without direct involvement in tracking processing. Despite potentially influencing pixel functionality through image blocking, they avoid processing responsibility when not using generated data.

The draft addresses consent proof requirements under GDPR Article 7.1. Organizations must demonstrate individual consent existence and collection conditions. When third parties collect consent, contractual clauses alone cannot satisfy proof obligations. Contracts should specify proof mechanisms, evidence availability, conservation requirements, and audit procedures.

Information disclosure requirements mandate clear tracking purpose descriptions before consent requests. Each purpose should receive prominent, brief titles with descriptive explanations. The CNIL provides specific language examples for different tracking activities.

Free consent expression requires separate consent requests for distinct purposes rather than bundled permissions. Organizations may collect global consent when secondary information levels allow purpose-specific granular choices. Commercial prospecting and related tracking activities may share consent under specific conditions.

The consultation includes supplementary questions about economic impacts affecting business models and competitive situations. The CNIL seeks quantified feedback about regulatory choice impacts and alternative solution possibilities.

Industry organizations and individual contributors can participate through July 24, 2025. The authority encourages sector coordination for consolidated feedback submissions. After consultation closure, the CNIL will review contributions and adopt final recommendation versions.

Technical specifications distinguish email tracking pixels from web-based cookies while applying similar consent principles. Pixels constitute images hosted on remote servers requiring network requests for display. URL parameters often contain individualized user or context information, enabling tracking when images load.

Server collection of request parameters constitutes terminal reading operations under French law. The European Data Protection Board confirmed Article 82 applicability to email tracking pixels in their October 2024 guidelines.

The framework affects all organizations using email tracking across public and private sectors. Each actor must determine their processing role regarding tracking operations. Sender responsibility extends to third-party tracking within their email campaigns, even when jointly defining purposes and methods with tracking providers.

Multiple consent collection methods accommodate different organizational needs. Primary recommendation involves consent gathering during email address collection with synthetic tracking purpose information and detailed policy links. Alternative approaches include dedicated consent emails without tracking devices for existing databases or third-party collected addresses.

Consent scope information must clarify tracking usage across all recipient terminals accessing emails. Implementation timing connects consent collection to specific email addresses and subsequent tracking deployment.

Free consent requirements prohibit simultaneous collection for multiple distinct processing purposes without individual acceptance options. Coupling concerns arise when single consent covers different activities without purpose-by-purpose choices affecting consent validity.

The proposed regulations include specific language templates for different tracking purposes. Campaign performance measurement descriptions explain tracking usage for effectiveness evaluation and message attractiveness improvement. Frequency adaptation explanations cover send limitation for deliverability preservation.

Personalization descriptions detail communication customization based on demonstrated interests including content adaptation and channel optimization. Profile creation explanations address targeting across email, web, applications, and other communication channels.

Fraud detection descriptions focus on unusual opening pattern identification including automated behavior detection and information protection attempts.

The consultation period extends through July 24, 2025, accepting contributions from affected organizations and civil society representatives. Following review, the CNIL plans adopting definitive recommendation versions addressing industry feedback while maintaining privacy protection objectives.

This regulatory development reflects broader European efforts to balance digital marketing effectiveness with individual privacy rights in increasingly tracked communication environments. The outcome may influence similar approaches across European Union member states facing comparable email tracking governance challenges.

Timeline

• October 2024: European Data Protection Board publishes guidelines 2/2023 confirming Article 82 applies to email tracking pixels
• June 12, 2025: CNIL launches public consultation on email tracking pixel recommendations
• July 24, 2025: Public consultation period closes
• Late 2025: CNIL expected to adopt final recommendation after reviewing industry feedback
• Related developments: Microsoft mandates user consent signals by May 2025
• Recent context: BeReal faces privacy complaints over tracking consent practices
• Industry impact: Apple's ATT framework fined €150M for anticompetitive tracking rules