Many website and blog owners ask themselves, how can I embed a YouTube video without taking legal risks. DSGVO compliance has become an important topic, not only since the well-known ruling of 20.01.2022 concerning DSGVO violations when embedding Google Fonts.
This article presents a variant to embed YouTube videos as required by the GDPR. This means that content from YouTube will only be loaded when you confirm. This prevents the unsolicited transmission of data to the Google group, when loading the page.
Attention: The article does not replace the thorough legal clarification of the website regarding data protection. It is only intended to be a guide to the best of our knowledge and belief.
Why not embed YouTube videos directly?
As mentioned above, when embedding YouTube videos without taking precautions for data protection, the visitor’s IP address is transmitted to Google/YouTube. According to DSGVO, the IP address belongs to the so-called personal data and may not be disclosed to third parties without consent and legitimate interest.
How do I embed YouTube videos in a privacy-compliant way?
To prevent the YouTube URL from loading when you open the page, a thumbnail of the video is displayed. When you click on the thumbnail, the video URL is loaded and the video is played.
For better transparency, there should be a note under the video stating that YouTube’s privacy policy applies when playing the video. In addition, YouTube’s privacy policy should be linked or accessible there.
This type of integration implements plugins like “WP YouTube Lyte”. More about this in the next chapter.
Install and activate plugin “WP YouTube Lyte
The installation of WP YouTube Lyte works like any other plugin:
- Log in to WordPress.
- Select “Plugin” > “Install”.
- In the search enter “wp youtube lyte”.
- Click on “Install”.
- After the installation click on “Activate”.
Configure “WP YouTube Lyte” plugin
After the plugin installation, a new menu item will appear in “WP YouTube Lyte” in WordPress. The settings are made there.
