We are in the process of finalising the elements of our Data Protection Compliance in line with the new General Data Protection Regulations which come into force from May the 25th 2018.
It’s one of those common sense things that should have been legislated for a long time ago: whose details are you storing, where, why and how? It will hopefully reduce the amount of spam delivered to our inboxes, as well as give options to individuals to choose who retains their contact details. Information is power, and this is the opportunity for people to have more of a measure of control over who holds onto their personal information.
Many small businesses think this only applies to Banks, large corporations and Data processing companies. Not so. It applies to EVERYONE who holds information about others, online, electronically, in a book, on scraps of paper – anywhere! Cue lots of tutting and eye-rolling from small business owner as they realise they have to make a start wading through hundreds of addresses. It’s worth it – the fines can be astronomical.
But look at this as a positive step: it’s chance to refresh old contacts in order to get consent to have their data; reconnect with people, remind them you’re there and great at what you do – as well as pointing out that you care about them and their information enough to ask permission to hold on to it.
At Adhoc the issue is a different shape: we regularly receive unsolicited submissions from actors who are forcing their contact details upon us but it’s ok, we’ve designed a way of dealing with that and we always try to send a polite reply to a well drafted letter!
But it’s time to be honest and BIN the data we no longer need, have no use for or have not contacted in over a year. Let’s face it, it’s just a good old spring clean!
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