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CIPA § 631 Risk

Is Microsoft Clarity legal in California?

Session Replay & Heatmaps · Updated 2026

Microsoft Clarity records session replays and builds heatmaps, capturing how visitors move through and interact with your pages. Whether a particular implementation is lawful depends on its configuration, the information transmitted, disclosures, consent, and other facts. A request observed before a recorded consent choice is a technical signal to investigate, not a legal conclusion.

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Why Microsoft Clarity can trigger CIPA claims

California's Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), Penal Code § 631, addresses specified forms of interception and related conduct. Plaintiffs have asserted that some website session-replay, chat, and pixel implementations fall within the statute when they capture interactions without valid consent. Courts assess the statute's application to the particular parties, data flow, timing, and other facts. Clarity records session replays and heatmaps; replaying visitor input without consent has driven CIPA § 631 demand letters.

CIPA § 637.2 authorizes statutory damages of up to $5,000 for a qualifying violation. Plaintiffs may argue that multiple sessions support multiple counts; RegSentry does not determine whether a violation occurred or predict recoverable damages.

Real-world enforcement

The California Attorney General reached a $1.2M CCPA settlement with Sephora over allegations involving sale disclosures and opt-out (Global Privacy Control) signals. That was a CCPA enforcement action, not a session-replay or CIPA case. Separately, private CIPA complaints involving session-replay and chat tools have named businesses in several industries. Those matters arise under different laws and facts and should not be treated as proof that a particular technical finding is unlawful.

How to reduce consent-timing risk involving Microsoft Clarity

  1. Gate the Clarity snippet behind consent — or use Clarity's own consent API: call clarity('consent') only after the visitor opts in.
  2. If installed via GTM, set the Clarity tag to require analytics consent.
  3. Enable Clarity's masking (Settings → Masking → 'Mask') so text/inputs are not captured.
  4. Re-scan with 'Verify fix' to confirm no requests reach *.clarity.ms before consent.

Consent-gating snippet

// Clarity supports a built-in consent signal. Load the snippet, but call:
//   clarity('consent');
// ONLY from your CMP's accept callback. Without that call, Clarity withholds cookies.
cmp.onConsent('analytics', () => window.clarity && window.clarity('consent'));

Microsoft Clarity's official privacy/consent documentation →

Check your own site

RegSentry runs a browser against authorized public pages and records when supported Microsoft Clarity and other third-party requests are observed relative to the test's consent state. Where supported, test-generated form interactions can help show the technical data flow. The scan does not decide whether a provider intercepted a communication or whether applicable law was violated.

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Real browser scan, no signup to run it. You see a summary of the findings; the full report with every tracker unlocks with your email.

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