In roughly four months’ time, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect. If you put any efforts into email marketing for your business, then listen up because this new legislation will include you! Don’t worry, if you are wondering about the what’s, why’s and ifs are about this new legislation, then your Knutsford web design agency will address all these questions.

Let’s begin with what General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is and when this legislation will come into effect.

What is GDPR?

For those of you unsure, GDPR stands for General Data Protections Regulation and is a ruling designed to protect the data of citizens within the EU with greater level of control over their personal data and how it is collected and shared.

The incoming change replaces the current EU Data Protection Directive of 1995 and will stand beside the EU e-privacy directories of 2002 and 2009.

When does GDPR come into effect!?

After several years of refining and debating, the regulation became officially approved by European Parliament in April 2016. A two-year transition period immediately followed for organisations to reach the compliance. General Data Protection Regulation will officially be enforceable as of May 25, 2018, with penalties and fines issues to organisations and businesses who do not meet the guidelines.

How will GDPR impact my business?

Email Marketing under General Data Protection Regulation will now impact your business in the way you collect freely-given, specific consent, meaning you will need to adopt to new practices and changes. Our Knutsford web design agency have highlighted which ones may apply to you;

Active Opt-In: Do you find it annoying when you scan through terms and conditions and you spot any pre-opt in boxes to sign up for promotional offers are automatically ticked for you? Or you when you have to carefully read the small print when they try to confuse you? Well FINALLY, under General Data Protection Regulation legislation, pre-ticked opt-in boxes are no longer a valid form of consent.

Easy to Withdraw: Users can easily withdraw their consent at any given time. Organisations, businesses and data owners alike must document users about their right to withdraw consent and put a simple and fast method in place to enforce withdrawing consent.

Documented: ALL consent must be fully recorded and contain what the user has consented to, what they were told at the time, and the method used to record consent.

Granular: If personal data is to be to be used in many different ways, organisations should look to ask for separate consent to each, so this presents data owners with as much control as possible on how data is used.

Named: All users must be informed of who the organisation or data collector is and document the names of any third parties of whom the data will be shared with

Unbundled: Consent should be separate from other all other terms and conditions, so all data owners can clearly see what they are signing up and to.

If businesses/organisations are much more direct with what they can and can’t do with your personal data, it’s likely that more users will be more inclined to offer and share personal data with businesses and email marketing if they are confident it will not be exposed.

Are there data breaches and penalties?
Yes. Once the General Data Protection Regulation legislation kicks in from May 2018, failure to comply or should a data breach occur, companies in breach of the rules will be fined 4% of turnover. If a data breach ever happens, GDPR states that organisations must provide adequate information and has 72 hours to notify the appropriate data protection and must data owners immediately.

How can your Knutsford Web Agency help you prepare?
Because of this, our Knutsford web design agency can not only advise all our customers on how they can update any terms and conditions, privacy policies or newsletter sign-up’s. we can also implement these changes on your website. Alternatively, if you have your own, please feel free to get in contact with us and we can make the changes in a matter of minutes.

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