GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It's a regulation that improves privacy and data security for residents of the European Union and the European Economic Area. It regulates how personal data is used.
What counts as personal data?
According to the European Commission, "personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer's IP address."
The Information Commissioner's Office states that GDPR provides the following individual rights to residents of the European Union and the European Economic Area:
The right to be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object
Rights concerning automated decision-making and profiling.
So, if you're in the EU, your ability to know what data companies have on you just got a lot easier. It is also now easier to request access/updating/deletion of that data.
If you're a customer from the US, Canada, or any other non-European country, you may be confused as to why all these companies are sending you information on updates to their privacy policies.
The reason is simple. Any business that has a customer in the EU must comply with GDPR. Compliance also means notifying users of any updates to policies. And since most US businesses have customers in the EU, they're sending out notices about updates to their policies to every single customer to make sure each one of them knows what is going on.
In addition, GDPR will stop companies from using all the legalese in their privacy policies and terms and conditions that make them sound like they're speaking another language. These agreements now have to be in plain language that anyone can understand. And that's a big win for consumers and Internet users everywhere.
It will also make it as easy for consumers to opt out of communications as it is to opt in. You know those kinds of newsletters - the ones where you unsubscribe but the next week find the same information coming from a different email address? That should happen no more under GDPR.
In our eyes, this is all great for consumers.
Design Pickle understands the spirit of the GDPR and has taken all the necessary actions to comply with GDPR. Here are just some of the actions we've taken so far:
Ensuring consent for any marketing opt-ins on the Design Pickle website
Adding consent for cookie tracking on the Design Pickle website
Following best practices for security and data storage
Ensuring that access to data can be restored via backups
Regularly reviewing and improving security practices
Collecting the data we need
Updating our privacy policy to be crystal clear in what data we collect and how we use it
Giving customers a way to request what data we have on them and allow them to update it or request deletion
Allowing customers to opt out of further communications
Training our team on data privacy best practices
If you have any questions for us about GDPR, please feel free to shoot us an email at [email protected]. You can also take a look at our privacy policy here.
Need further help? Email us through [email protected], or click the chat button on the lower right-hand side of this window to chat with us.