The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a press release reminding stakeholders of forthcoming reforms to ePrivacy rules within the EU. The ICO notes that the new ePrivacy Regulation (ePR), a draft of which was published earlier this year, will come into force in May 2018, at the same time as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The UK government has confirmed that the ePR will be implemented in UK law before Britain leaves the EU. The draft ePR contains proposals to address the issue of Wi-Fi location tracking, tightened rules on marketing and enhanced powers to fine organisations for non-compliance in line with the GDPR, even when the offending entity is based outside of the EU. In particular, the ePR could introduce requirements for specific consent to be obtained in relation to marketing calls, which is a move away from the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which currently only require companies to screen against the telephone preference service when making marketing calls. In terms of cookies and tracking devices more generally, the proposed ePR also indicates a shift away from the use of cookie banners and towards users’ browser settings. The ICO has made it clear that, at present, it has a watching brief and will be monitoring negotiations to assess how they might affect the implementation of the ePR in the UK before releasing guidance later this year.