General Data Privacy Rights (GDPR) are associated with people’s privacy rights and laws. Only consented data is accessed and used in email marketing. All of your top queries about GDPR in Email Marketing are answered below.
Introduction
The General Data Protection Regulation, launched back in 2018 regarding all the EU citizens, was most probably one of the best decisions made regarding the protection of user data. People were quite satisfied that their data would be protected from any third party organization. But along with the satisfaction of customers, came the worry of email marketers, and not only those based in EU at that, but any marketer in contact with an EU citizen would also have to implement these laws. Thus this led to general dissatisfaction and tension among all the email marketers due to the fear of going against these laws. We’ll be going through the top questions email marketers ask regarding GDPR to clarify your queries and help you relieve your worries.
Q.1) Why does GDPR also apply to email marketers outside of EU?
GDPR applies to all email marketers in EU, but email marketers who aren’t EU based but have EU citizens in their databases would also have to comply with these laws, quite a lot of email marketers fall into this category. Even EU citizens who aren’t residing in the state, come under this law. So email marketers need to be very careful and keep their databases in check to not get caught violating the law. These marketers might ask their lawyers to back them up but the GDPR is strong and consistent and there’s no way around it, so it’s best to adopt it.
As detailed in an article featured on the SuperOffice Blog, the scope of GDPR extends to all businesses and organizations with a presence in the EU, irrespective of where their data processing activities occur. Even organizations located outside the EU are bound by GDPR regulations if they provide goods and/or services to EU citizens. In such cases, compliance with GDPR is mandatory.
Q.3) In the case of a data breach, what actions should be taken?
If a data breach occurs, you are supposed to report it within 72 hours of the occurrence to ICO or any other supervising authority. You should also prepare a list of the affected individuals and submit it to ICO. If the lost data was of significant importance and highly sensitive, then you should inform those specific individuals as well. Fines may be imposed if certain carelessness or purposeful actions are detected by ICO.
Q.2) What about all the previous data that the marketers collected in their databases before the implementation of GDPR?
Customer consent is what the entire GDPR revolves around. Getting consent after the implementation of GDPR is easy, but what about all that old data in your databases that the customers did not consent to be used by you before GDPR was officially announced?
According to information provided by the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, it’s important to note that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not have retrospective application. In other words, it doesn’t directly pertain to personal data collected before its enforcement on May 25, 2018. Nevertheless, if you are still handling personal data that was collected prior to the GDPR’s implementation, you are still obligated to adhere to the GDPR’s data protection principles.
You’d have to send out re-consent emails for that but many customers might not respond to those and thus become uncontactable because you’d have to erase their data, considering that they’d be counted as those who “haven’t given consent”. Use this as an opportunity to clean out your databases and make room for customers who are actually interested in your business.
Q.4) Is a DPO (Data Protection Officer) necessary?
Appointing a DPO is not a necessity for small scale organizations that are; not handling any criminal records or data, and are not responsible for any large scale public data.
According to Ascentor, a private organization is not obligated to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) in situations where its primary activities infrequently involve monitoring data subjects with minimal infringement on their rights, it does not process special category personal information, or it only handles special category personal information for a limited group of data subjects.
But it is highly recommended that the organization should evaluate all its requirements carefully to decide whether a DPO is required or not. It is best to get a DPO’s advice and opinions off and on though.
