Record without waiting for consent
By default, Whence waits for each visitor to allow statistics before it records anything. Record without waiting for consent lets you skip that wait. It is off by default, and it is your decision.
What it does
When it is on, Whence records every visit, captures every email and phone number typed, and sends events to your ad platforms without waiting for consent. Passwords and card numbers are never captured, and what visitors type stays hidden in recordings.
In the EU, UK and some US states, recording visitors and collecting their email without consent is illegal. You are responsible for this choice.
What stays respected
A visitor who says no is still respected. If a visitor refuses in Shopify’s banner, in your consent tool or through whence.consent(), Whence does not record them, even with this switch on. A visitor who explicitly refuses marketing is not sent to your ad platforms either.
The only exception is a second setting, off by default, that you turn on yourself: Record even when a visitor declines. Even then, nothing is sent to your ad platforms without marketing consent.
Turn it on
Step 1: Open the Consent block
Go to Settings > Recording & privacy. The switch sits in the Consent block. The same block is in Setup > Install, and in the Whence app inside your Shopify admin.
Step 2: Click the switch
The switch stays off, and the warning above appears in the page.
Step 3: Confirm
Click Turn on to confirm, or Cancel to leave it off.
Turning it off asks nothing: click the switch again, and Whence waits for your visitors’ consent from then on.
Changing the switch needs the Store settings right. Without it, the switch is grayed out with “Changing this needs the Settings right.”
How Whence keeps track
- Who and when: every change is written to your account’s audit log, and the block shows “Changed by jane@example.com on September 28, 2026.”
- Marked visits: each visit that entered because of the switch, without a consent answer from the visitor, is marked as recorded without consent. The mark is part of the file you hand over when that person asks for their data (Access and erasure requests).
Older Whence snippets had a “Record right away” option. If your site still runs that snippet and you never chose either way, Whence turns this switch on the first time it sees a visit from it, and logs the change. You can turn it off at any time. It never happens through the Shopify app.
Better options first
If Whence found no banner on your store, a banner is usually the better fix. Whence does not show one of its own: on Shopify, turn on Shopify’s free cookie banner or a consent app connected to it; elsewhere, add a consent tool such as Cookiebot, OneTrust or Google Consent Mode. See Which cookie banner Whence reads.