GDPR: Checking if user falls under GDPR terms

Question

I am a bit confused about what is the proper way to detect whether a user falls under GDPR laws. Most websites use IP geolocation for this purpose, but what if the user is traveling while visiting the website and they are not asked for consent, but then move back to EU?

I am asking this because I am wondering if storing a cookie indicating the user is NOT from EEA would be compliant with the GDPR so the website does not do all GDPR logic that is slowing the website down for NON-EEA users? Or at least remembering for the time of the session (session cookie) that the user IP was not from EEA. Or is EEA IP check needed for each page load (then the question from the first paragraph remains)?

I know the option is to just show GDPR consent to all the users, but I don't want to spam them with popups and offer them slower website due to all additional logic needed to control all the functions of the website that GDPR affects.

Answer 1

GDPR is applicable to people in the European Union territories. If they are registered user you may know it as per collected data during registration. From a technical perspective: If they are just visitors of a website (not registered and logged in to any service) while they are travelling outside the EEA territories, there is nothing you can do. In the latter case, the user can ensure he is identified as EEA resident through the use of a VPN or Proxy. You must verify the legal responsibility of this scenario with a solicitor specialised in GDPR.