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How do I check whether my site tracks before consent?

Updated: 13 October 2026

Why check at all

A consent window guarantees nothing by itself. Sometimes the window looks fine while the statistics and advertising tags start before the visitor has chosen anything. The window is then decoration.

Usually nobody meant any harm. It is enough for the window to load after the Google tags, or for a shop plugin to add an advertising pixel outside the window's control.

It is worth knowing for two reasons. The rules require consent before storage, not after it. And the wrong order also breaks the passing of consent to Google, so the measurement of your campaigns suffers.

Preparation: a clean browser

Open a private window, also called incognito mode. In Chrome and Edge the shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+N, in Firefox Ctrl+Shift+P. A private window starts with no stored files, so you see the site the way a first-time visitor does.

Switch off ad-blocking extensions for a moment if they also run in private windows. Otherwise they will block the tags and the test will paint a better picture than the real one.

Go to your site. When the consent window appears, leave it alone. Click nothing and close nothing.

Step one: the list of cookies

Press F12. The browser's tools panel opens. It looks intimidating, but you need only one tab.

In Chrome and Edge choose the Application tab, then on the left pick Cookies and your site's address. In Firefox the tab is called Storage.

You will see a table of cookie names. If it is empty, or holds only session, language or consent window cookies, all is well.

If you see names starting with _ga or _gid, those are Google Analytics cookies. The Latvian authority names them as ones that need consent. Finding them before a decision means statistics started too early.

Look a little further down as well, at Local storage. The rules cover not only cookies but any storage on the device.

Step two: connections to outside services

In the same panel, go to the Network tab and reload the page with F5. A list appears of everything the page fetched and sent.

In the filter box type, one after another: google, facebook, clarity. If the list fills up, the site is contacting those services before any decision.

Some care is needed here. A connection alone does not have to mean that something was stored on the device. The list of cookies from the previous step is firmer evidence. Treat connections as a hint about where to look next.

Step three: test both decisions

Now click reject in the consent window and go back to the list of cookies. Nothing should have been added apart from the cookie that remembers your decision.

Close the private window, open a new one and repeat the test, this time clicking accept. Now the statistics and advertising cookies should appear. If they do not, the window blocks too much and you lose data from people who agreed.

Finally, visit two or three other pages, for example a product page and the basket. Sometimes the home page is set up correctly and an extra tag sits only in the basket.

What to do with the result

If something is stored before consent, there are three usual causes. The consent window loads after Google Tag Manager. A tag is pasted straight into the site template. A plugin adds a pixel of its own.

Write down the cookie names and addresses you found and pass them to whoever looks after the site. A list like that saves a lot of time.

This test shows the state in one browser at one moment. It does not replace a full review, but it catches the most common mistakes.

Some tools do part of this work for you. The ConsentGate panel, for instance, checks that the window's script is on the page and sits before the Google code.

Sources

• EDPB Guidelines 2/2023 on the technical scope of Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive
• DVI (Latvia): cookie guidelines
• Directive 2002/58/EC on privacy and electronic communications
• Google EU User Consent Policy

This guide is for information only and is not legal advice.