What does a person actually confirm by pressing "Agree"?
One button, but what stands behind it differs on every site — and is almost always longer than the willingness to read it.
Why the question came up
In one project we counted the documents a subscription form refers to: four links, forty-one pages of text, three different data recipients.
Formally the consent is obtained. Practically the person confirmed a volume unknown to them.
What is already known
- In Russian practice, consent to personal data processing rests on Federal Law No. 152-FZ "On Personal Data".
- In the interface consent is almost always reduced to a single action, while legally it splits into purposes, scope and recipients.
What is not known yet
- Whether the scope of consent can be shown in a way that gets read rather than scrolled past.
- What happens to form conversion if the content of the consent becomes visible before the click.
Current hypothesis
Hypothesis
A short, concrete purpose next to the checkbox reduces anxiety more than a link to the full document, and does not necessarily reduce conversion.
Next step
Collect consent forms from twenty public services and decompose them into purpose, scope, term and recipient. Compare how much of that is visible before the click.
Sources and notes
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Федеральный закон № 152-ФЗ «О персональных данных»
Законодательство РФ · 2006
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