Editorial Board
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5 June 2026
GDPR and EAA Compliance: Two laws, one compliant website
The GDPR guards how their data gets handled. The EAA guards whether they can use the thing at all. Most companies have bought solid protection for the first and left the second standing wide open.

Introduction
This Privacy Notice aims to clearly and transparently explain which personal data we collect when you visit our website, why we collect it, how we use it, and what Your rights are.
We process your personal data in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. We are committed to ensuring that all processing activities are carried out in accordance with the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, data minimization, integrity, and confidentiality.
Specifically, in this notice you will find information about:
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which data we collect about you and for what purposes;
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the legal bases on which we process such data;
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who we may share your data with;
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how long we retain your data;
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your rights and how to exercise them.
While we sometimes need Your data for example, to respond to your requests or improve our website), we do so with respect, care and only when truly necessary.
Our Privacy Promises
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We deeply value your privacy, and for this reason, we guarantee that:
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We treat your data as if it were our own.
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We use your data only for the purposes outlined in this notice.
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We retain your data only for as long as strictly necessary.
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We do not share your data with third parties without a valid legal basis or your explicit consent.
1. Who Processes Your Personal Data
The Data Controller — that is, the entity that determines the purposes and means of the processing of Your personal data — is AccessiWay S.a.S., with registered office at 7 Rue du Général Henrion Bertier, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Sein registered with the Nanterre Trade and Companies Register under number 914 022 595.
AccessiWay is part of the team.blue group and, in certain cases, acts as joint controller together with team.blue NV, with registered office at Skaldenstraat 121, 9042 Ghent, Belgium. In this context, Your personal data may be shared within the group for statistical, administrative, operational, and service improvement purposes.
AccessiWay and team.blue have defined their respective roles and responsibilities under a joint controllership agreement pursuant to Article 26 of the GDPR, ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations.
For more information regarding joint controllership or to exercise Your rights, you may contact AccessiWay via email at the following email addresses:
📧 legal.fr@accessiway.com or info@accessiway.com.
2. Who This Privacy Notice Applies To
This notice applies to:
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users who browse the website www.accessiway.com,
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individuals who contact us through the form available on the website or via email;
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users who interact with tools we have implemented (e.g. widgets, cookies);
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individuals who, through the website or other channels, access external platforms or third-party entities through which they may submit a job application (e.g. recruiting portals or employment agencies).
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In such cases, the privacy notices of the third parties involved — independent from AccessiWay — also apply.
3. What Data We Process
To manage your interaction with our website, we may process the following categories of personal data:
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Identification and contact details such as name, surname, company, job title, email address, and phone number.
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These data may be partially processed through our customer relationship management (CRM) system.
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Data relating to your interaction with our services such as information collected via the website or through Hubspot, such as communication history, preferences, requests, and commercial or technical notes.
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Technical data such as IP address, device type, operating system, browser, access times, and other data automatically recorded by our systems or servers.
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Browsing data and preferences such as collected via cookies or similar technologies, in accordance with the choices expressed through the cookie consent banner.
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Application data such as personal information included in your CV or other documents submitted through third-party platforms (e.g. professional experience, education, contact details).
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These data are processed by AccessiWay only after being transmitted by the third party, which remains autonomous in the initial processing.
4. Purposes and Legal Basis of Processing
We process Your personal data in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. Your data may be processed for the following purposes:
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Technical operation of the website
We process technical data, using technical cookies and similar tools, to allow You to access the site, view it correctly, and ensure it functions properly (e.g. browsing, content loading, storing preferences).
📌Legal basis: this processing is necessary to provide a service requested by the user, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR. Your consent is not required for these cookies.
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Handling contact or support requests
When you send us a request — via the contact form or by email — we process your data to respond and provide the information requested.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
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Compliance with legal obligations
In certain cases, we may need to process your data to comply with legal obligations, such as tax, accounting, or IT security requirements.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is based on compliance with a legal obligation, pursuant to Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR.
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Statistical analysis and website improvement
We use analytical tools (e.g. analytical cookies) to collect aggregated data in order to understand how the website is used and to improve its content and functionality.
📌 Legal basis: we process this data only with your freely given and specific consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
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Marketing and Profiling
If you authorize us to do so, we may use your data to send you promotional communications or provide personalized content (e.g. through profiling cookies).
📌 Legal basis: this processing is carried out only with your explicit consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR. You may withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
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Management of job applications through third parties
We may receive job applications via third-party platforms (e.g. job portals) or through recruitment agencies. In such cases, we process the submitted data to assess your suitability for the proposed role.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
Note: the privacy policies of the third-party platforms or agencies involved also apply, independently of AccessiWay.
5. Cookies and Tracking Tools
This website uses a cookie management system provided by iubenda, which allows you to:
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view a full and transparent list of the cookies in use;
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modify or withdraw your consent at any time;
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access the complete Cookie Policy, integrated in the cookie widget.
You can manage your preferences by clicking on the cookie widget icon located at the bottom left corner of every page on the site.
Technical cookies are necessary and therefore enabled by default. Other non-essential cookies (analytical, profiling) are only enabled with your consent.
For more information, please refer to the full Cookie Policy accessible from the cookie widget.
6. Use of accessWidget
This website integrates accessWidget, an automated accessibility tool developed by accessiBe Ltd. and distributed by AccessiWay. The widget allows users to personalize their browsing experience based on their needs.
When the user activates the widget, their IP address is technically transmitted, but:
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it is not stored, tracked, or associated with identifiable individuals;
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it is anonymized via a proxy located in the European Union;
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it is not used for profiling or marketing purposes.
📌 Legal basis: provision of a service requested by the user (Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR).
7. Data Security
We adopt appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of the personal data we process. These measures are designed to prevent unauthorized access, loss, disclosure, or alteration of your data. In particular, we implement:
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secure connections via HTTPS (SSL/TLS);
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authentication systems and access control;
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access limitation and internal access tracking mechanisms;
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regular audits and verification procedures;
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continuous updates to systems and security measures according to the level of risk.
8. Data Retention
Your personal data is stored only for the time strictly necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was collected. Specifically:
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Contact data: up to 10 years if relevant for contractual or legal purposes;
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Technical and browsing data: according to what is outlined in the Cookie Policy;
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Marketing data: until consent is withdrawn.
9. Your Rights (Data Subject Rights)
As a data subject, you may exercise the rights provided under Articles 15–22 of the GDPR at any time. In particular, you have the right to:
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Obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed and access such data (right of access);
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Request the rectification of inaccurate personal data or the completion of incomplete data (right to rectification);
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Request the erasure of your data, if the conditions set out in the GDPR are met (right to erasure);
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Obtain restriction of processing where applicable (right to restriction);
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Object to the processing of your data, in whole or in part, under certain circumstances (right to object);
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Receive your data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and, where technically feasible, have it transmitted directly to another controller (right to data portability);
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Withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
📧 You can exercise Your rights at any time by contacting us at: legal.fr@accessiway.com.
🔗 If you are located in France and believe that the processing of your personal data violates applicable law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés – CNIL) via the website: www.cnil.fr.
*If you have difficulty accessing our form, please feel free to contact us. Send an e-mail to info@accessiway.com
Somewhere in your company there's a checklist, and next to "privacy" there's a green tick. The banner went live months ago. Legal signed off. As far as anyone's concerned, compliance is handled. It's worth reopening that file, because the tick answers a smaller question than it looks like it does: compliant for whom?
Compliance has surprisingly little to do with the checklist, or with the fine you're trying to dodge. Underneath the legal language, both of Europe's big digital rules guard the same thing: a person's ability to move through their online life without being trapped or shut out.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guards how their data gets handled. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) guards whether they can use the thing at all. Most companies have bought solid protection for the first and left the second standing wide open.
GDPR and EAA compliance in short
GDPR and the EAA protect the same thing from two sides, a person's ability to act online safely and on their own. iubenda handles the data side; we handle accessibility. The two meet in places like your cookie banner, where one broken component can fail both at once. The useful thing to do after reading this is to assess your own channels. |
Why EAA compliance gets overlooked and why that's changing
Privacy gets the attention because the tooling is mature and the banner is right there on screen. Accessibility is the quiet half, and the picture is grim. In its February 2026 sweep of the top one million home pages, WebAIM found that 95.9% had detectable WCAG failures, averaging 56.1 errors per page, a 10.1% jump that wiped out several years of slow gains. And these aren't forgotten corners of the web; they're the most visited pages on it.
Measure | Result |
Home pages with detectable WCAG failures | 95.9% |
Average accessibility errors per page | 56.1 (up 10.1%) |
Home pages with low-contrast text | 83.9% |
Barriers across page elements | ~1 in 26 |
Average elements per home page | 1,437 |
Source: WebAIM Million 2026 analysis of the top one million home pages.
The six most common WCAG failures (and why they keep appearing)
The failures are almost boringly familiar. The same six issues have led the list for seven years straight:
low contrast text
missing alternative text
empty links
missing form labels
empty buttons
missing document language
Low contrast alone turns up on 83.9% of pages. For someone using a screen reader, a barrier roughly every twenty-six elements stops being an occasional snag and becomes the texture of the whole experience.

The link between GDPR compliance and web accessibility
One finding should make any decision maker pause. WebAIM saw that sites built on mainstream consent technology carried far fewer accessibility errors than sites leaning on invasive tracking tools, and pointed to a likely link between how a company handles privacy and how it handles access. It suggests something uncomfortable: the companies that cut corners on one tend to cut them on the other.
What GDPR and the EAA actually protect
It helps to put the regulations down for a second and picture the person at the keyboard. GDPR is about safety: knowing who's holding your data, and being able to refuse the parts you don't want without being quietly tracked anyway. The EAA is about autonomy: being able to finish the checkout or send off a job application without needing anyone else's help.
A company can get one right and the other badly wrong. Lock the data down beautifully on a page a customer who's blind can't navigate, and you've built a vault bolted shut behind a door that won't open for them. Neither half is optional, because a person needs both to be genuinely free online.
Your Cookie Banner: where GDPR and Accessibility compliance collide
If you want to watch privacy and accessibility break in the very same moment, look at the consent banner you already installed. It belongs to both worlds at once, a privacy mechanism and an accessibility touchpoint, and it sits on every page you publish.
How one inaccessible Cookie Banner can break two laws at once
Picture someone arriving at it who navigates by keyboard, or with a screen reader. If they can't tab to "Reject all," or the button is never announced to them, they've been handed a choice they can't actually make. Now trace the consequence, because it's sharper than it first appears. GDPR says non-essential cookies can't fire before consent. When a visitor with a disability can't operate the banner, the analytics and marketing cookies that load regardless are already a breach, set off by the very tool you bought to keep you safe. The law also says refusing has to be as easy as accepting, which quietly fails the instant the toggles can't be reached by keyboard. One component, broken once, fails both laws at the same time, and it does it to the same person.
The fix depends on your consent platform
The repair doesn't happen by hand on every page. Whether a consent banner can be operated at all, its keyboard support, its focus handling, the labels a screen reader reads out, comes down to the consent platform you chose. That choice is the whole game. The privacy and consent side is iubenda's home turf, built to do that job properly. The accessibility of everything around it is ours.
Why a single tool can't make your website compliant
The temptation is to hunt for a single product that makes "compliance" disappear. There isn't one, because the two jobs aren't the same kind of work. Privacy is mostly configuration and documentation, and a serious consent platform like iubenda's takes care of it. Web accessibility keeps moving: with home pages now averaging 1,437 elements and close to 4% of them carrying errors, every release is a fresh chance to lock someone out. So it's work you keep doing, not a thing you install once and forget. We treat it that way because the web refuses to sit still.
How to start your website accessibility and compliance audit
Here's the part you can act on today. Before your next campaign goes out, spend twenty minutes on your own site, ideally on the pages that actually make money:
Keyboard only. Try to complete a purchase or a sign-up using only the keyboard, no mouse, and notice where you get stranded.
The reject button. Open your cookie banner and reach "Reject all" with the keyboard alone. If you can't, a share of your visitors can't either, and their consent may not count.
Contrast. Run a contrast check on your main text and buttons, since that single issue is the most common failure on the web.
You'll find something. Most sites do. What matters is the reason you fix it. Not because a penalty is coming, though the EAA has applied to many private companies since 28 June 2025.Under the EAA, in-scope companies are also required to publish an accessibility statement — a formal, public declaration of how your website meets accessibility standards and where gaps still exist. It's not optional, and it needs to be kept up to date. Fix it because every barrier you clear is one more person who gets to finish what they came to do, without being quietly turned away at the door.
iubenda keeps the data side sound. Our job is making sure the doors open. If you want to know where your own channels really stand, start with an accessibility assessment and bring iubenda in for the privacy layer. That's the whole house, and it should be one anyone can walk into.
Frequently asked questions on GDPR and EAA compliance
What does it mean for a website to be compliant in the EU?
EU website compliance covers two duties: protecting personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and making the site usable for people with disabilities under the European Accessibility Act (EAA). You need both to be compliant.
What is the difference between GDPR and the European Accessibility Act?
GDPR protects how a company collects and uses personal data, giving people control and safety. The EAA protects whether people can actually use a website, app, or service, regardless of disability. One guards privacy; the other guards access.
Can an inaccessible cookie banner break GDPR?
Yes, if a visitor with a disability can't reach the reject option using a keyboard or screen reader, they can't give valid consent. Any non-essential cookies that load anyway count as a GDPR breach, so the banner fails on privacy and accessibility at once.
How many websites fail accessibility standards?
A 2026 WebAIM analysis of the top one million home pages found that 95.9% had detectable accessibility failures, averaging 56.1 per page. The most common digital barriers were low contrast text, missing alternative text, and unlabeled form fields.
How can a business check if its website is compliant?
Start with a quick self-check: try completing a purchase using only the keyboard, confirm you can reach the reject button on your cookie banner, and test color contrast. For a full picture, an accessibility assessment maps the digital barriers across every page.

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