Practical Advice on Data Compliance

Andy and David Smith offer practical advice on compliance with the new data protection regime

You have probably heard of GDPR. If you haven’t, it’s the General Data Protection Regulation, and it’s coming to you soon.

You currently hold lists of customers, lists of prospects – in fact, all sorts of lists that identify all sorts of individuals. GDPR impacts on direct sales and marketing because of the reliance on the use of names, job responsibilities and contact details. And this will now apply as much to the B2B world as B2C – in future there will be no distinction.

GDPR replaces the UK Data Protection Act (DPA) on 25 May 2018. From that date it demands that you protect any data you hold on people (data subjects), and ensure it has been legally obtained. It also places a duty on someone in your organisation to take some serious steps if something goes wrong and a data breach occurs.

Your organisation will rely, to a greater or lesser degree, on data that is deemed to be personal information. GDPR demands that personal data you hold on staff, suppliers and customers is: l Secure l Fairly sourced l Accurate l Kept for no longer than is necessary l Not transferred abroad (with some exceptions) l Processed lawfully. REGULATION

ANDY SMITH (right) is managing director, and DAVID SMITH is technical director, of Corpdata, supplying legally compliant business lists and offering advice on GDPR. Visit www.corpdata.co.uk or call 01626 777400.

As a result, you need to understand the impact of GDPR on how you source your customer and your prospect data, how you process it, and how you store it and pass it to third parties.

While GDPR will have organisation-wide impact, the challenge it poses to direct sales and marketing is particularly significant. If a business fails to prepare for it, the repercussions will be felt beyond the use of personal data within sales activity. The firm will be hit by eye-watering penalties – do you really want to write a cheque for 4% of turnover? And it may become so averse to the risk of direct sales and marketing that it stops conducting any. If your company stopped selling, how would you pay your bills? If everyone moved budgets to “search” and social media, only the cash-rich companies could afford that game.

WHAT IS PERSONAL DATA? GDPR only applies to personal data. This can be a name, email, phone number, address, but also social media labels, photographs, IP addresses and, for instance, information gathered using cookies and tracking codes. The test is quite simple: if data identifies an individual then it is personal data.

HANDLE DATA PROPERLY GDPR affects how your sales and marketing function handles personal data, and how it collects it. GDPR brings with it greater emphasis on the prevention of data breaches, so you will actively need to protect the data you hold, and be able to prove that you are doing so. Should a breach occur, you must identify it and handle it appropriately.

Given our definition of personal data, how much do you hold? Where is it held? Who has access to it? If you send it out from your organisation, how? Is it adequately protected? If you can’t answer these questions, you need to audit the personal data you hold, and define sensible measures to ensure it is securely stored. You need a clear policy that informs and leads your organisation.

COLLECT DATA CAREFULLY To comply with the new law, you must demonstrate some legal basis for holding an individual’s personal information. You must explain to the individual why you are collecting data and how you are going to use it. GDPR means that their consent for you to use their data can no longer be assumed. The requirements for consent to be lawful are more rigid and specific. You will no longer be able

to imply consent from the acceptance of cookies or from being given contact details in the course of a sales enquiry. Consent must be freely given and you must make it clear that they can withdraw it at a later date. Have individual preferences for receiving marketing information been ascertained? Have they stated that they are happy to receive marketing information via email, mail or phone?

You will be taking a significant risk if you source your sales and marketing target lists from any supplier who has failed to make clear their legal basis for holding data, or has failed to explain what will happen to the information once collated.

Will you still be able to use direct sales and marketing post-GDPR? Yes, as long as you and your list supplier can demonstrate how data collection complies with the new law.

“If you lay good foundations, you will still be able to execute well-targeted direct selling and marketing campaigns”

WHAT ABOUT LEGACY DATA? You must be extremely careful about the provenance of the contacts you use. You must avoid using names and contact details you happen to have, or harvesting details you come across. Unless you have spoken to the contacts you hold, and made clear the legal basis for continuing to hold their information and your intended use, and you have retained proof of doing so, you may find yourself facing massive financial penalties.

TREAD CAREFULLY ON CONSENT You also need to be very careful about emailing people for their validation or gaining permissions. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) gives individuals specific privacy rights in relation to electronic communications. Be warned: you don’t have permission to email to gain consent for further contact if they have stated in the past that they don’t want to hear from you. You could end up with both a fine and reputational damage – without even trying to sell anyone anything...

AND FINALLY… Just in case you think Brexit will let us all off the hook, forget it – GDPR will remain enacted within British law. We urge you to get GDPR-ready. Learn what you need to do to comply. After all, your business will need new customers. If you lay good foundations, you will still be able to execute well-targeted direct selling and marketing campaigns, and if you prepare when others don’t, you could derive significant competitive advantage. One of the most important

Ask Anne TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

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