Implementing cookies consent

Cookies are chunks of data that are stored by browsers to help websites store user preferences and other information. Most of our DfE data dashboards generally store two cookies, one to allow Google Analytics to differentiate between unique users and returning users and the second to store a user’s preference on whether they allow the use of the Google Analytics (or any additional custom) cookies.

Assuming a dashboard is set up with at least the Google Analytics cookie, then gaining user consent is a mandatory requirement.

Note that to activate Google Analytics on your data dashboard, you will need to contact the explore education statistics platforms team at explore.statistics@education.gov.uk and request a Google Analytics key.

dfeshiny provides a standard Government Digital Service (GDS) compliant banner, a cookies information panel and the underlying code required to allow end users to give or withhold their consent for cookies to be used. If they withhold their consent, then tracking with Google Analytics will be halted (note that this will lead to your analytics underestimating your user base to some degree).

Implementing cookies control on your dashboard is handled by several functions in dfeshiny, with the process outlined below.

The cookies control requires some underlying javascript to remove and create cookies as well as switch Google Analytics on and off. This javascript needs including in your dashboard’s www/ folder, which can be achieved by running the following command from the R console in your dashboard project / repo:

dfeshiny::init_cookies()

Before adding the cookies consent banner, we recommend adding your Google Analytics key as a variable to your dashboard’s global.R file (replacing ABCDE12345 below with the key provided by the Explore Education Statistics Platforms team):

google_analytics_key <- "ABCDE12345"

You will then need to add the necessary code to your ui.R file to a) run the javascript (dfe_cookies_script), b) create the consent banner (cookies_banner_ui), editing the dashboard name to match your own and c) add a cookies information panel (cookies_panel_ui):

ui <- function(input, output, session) {
  shiny::fluidPage(
    shinyjs::useShinyjs(),
    dfeshiny::dfe_cookies_script(),
    dfeshiny::cookies_banner_ui(
      name = "Your dashboard name"
    ),
    shiny::navlistPanel(
      "",
      id = "navlistPanel",
      widths = c(2, 8),
      well = FALSE,
      shiny::tabPanel(
        value = "cookies_panel_ui",
        "Cookies",
        cookies_panel_ui(google_analytics_key = google_analytics_key)
      )
    )
  )
}

You should then add the cookies_banner_server and cookies_panel_server functions to your server.R script:

output$cookies_status <- dfeshiny::cookies_banner_server(
  input_cookies = shiny::reactive(input$cookies),
  parent_session = session,
  google_analytics_key = google_analytics_key
)

dfeshiny::cookies_panel_server(
  input_cookies = shiny::reactive(input$cookies),
  google_analytics_key = google_analytics_key
)

In the above you should keep all of the flags as they are shown. Note that this assumes you have added google_analytics_key as a declared variable in your global.R file. If you’ve not done this, you’ll need to replace google_analytics_key = google_analytics_key to google_analytics_key = "ABCDE12345" (replacing “ABCDE12345” with your own key).

With the above included, the user’s preference will itself be stored in a cookie (dfe_analytics), which by default expires after 365 days. The user can then also find information about the cookies stored by your dashboard and change their consent preference on a specific cookies consent panel on your dashboard that’s created by the cookies_panel() function.