Glossary
Consent record
Also called proof of consent.
Last reviewed 18 September 2026
What is a consent record?
A consent record is the evidence that a particular person agreed to receive a particular kind of mail, kept because Article 7(1) of the GDPR puts the burden of demonstrating consent on whoever relies on it.
What to keep is what you would need in order to answer a complaint a year later: what the person was shown, what they agreed to, when, and from where. A timestamp and an address on their own describe a row in a table rather than an act by a person.
A confirmation click is the cheapest version of this, because it is a timestamped act performed at the address itself. The GDPR names no mechanism and does not contain the phrase double opt-in; it defines consent as freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous in Article 4(11), and leaves the evidence to you.
See also
- Confirmed opt-in
Confirmed opt-in, usually called double opt-in, is the practice of sending one message to a newly submitted address and adding it to a list only after somebody clicks the link in that message.
- Soft opt-in
The soft opt-in is the narrow exception in European electronic marketing rules that lets a seller market its own similar products to somebody whose details were obtained in the course of a sale, provided that person was given a clear chance to object when the details were collected and in every message since.
- Re-permission campaign
A re-permission campaign is a single message sent to an existing list asking the people on it to confirm that they still want the mail, after which everybody who did not confirm is suppressed rather than mailed again.
Read next
This term is covered properly in GDPR and email courses: consent, records, and erasure, which is a longer piece on the subject.
Every other term is on the glossary index , the longer writing is in the guides, and what this site itself does is on the home page.
Thinking of writing one of these?
5dayemail hosts a five-to-ten day email course: you write it once, and everyone who joins your list gets one email a day, in order, starting from the day they confirm.
Accounts are opened a few at a time rather than by signing up. Leave your address and you will be written to when the next ones open.
One message, when there is room. No course emails, no newsletter, and the address is not passed on. Ask and it is deleted; what is kept, and for how long, is in the privacy policy.