Is Polylang compatible with the EU cookie law?

Polylang uses a cookie to remember the language selected by the user when he comes back to visit again the website. This cookie is also used to get the language information when not available in another way. Examples are ajax requests or the login page.

According to the section 3.6 of the  Opinion 04/2012 on Cookie Consent Exemption, this cookie is part of the user interface customization and may be considered as requested by the user. Whether it requires the explicit consent of the user seems to depend on the expiration time or the information provided on your website. Moreover European countries have all their own law and do not apply the European directive the same way. Please check if this cookie requires an explicit user consent in your own country.

Here are the information about the cookie used by Polylang:

  • Default name: ‘pll_language’, can be changed by setting the constant PLL_COOKIE
  • Value: the language code of the last browsed page
  • Default expiration time: 1 year, can be changed with the filter ‘pll_cookie_expiration’

It is possible not to use the cookie (be aware however that in this case and as stated above, not everything will work correctly)  by putting the code below for example in your wp-config.php file:

define( 'PLL_COOKIE', false);