Business Monitor GDPR revisited one year on
12 months ago marketing expert, Paul Clapham, wrote here about the arrival of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). He is revisiting the topic to see how things are progressing, and it has to be said from the off that it’s not good news.
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compliant. As all readers will know, ignorance of the law is no defence. Moreover, we are a law-abiding nation – rarely do we block motorways with our tractors, or don yellow waistcoats and go a-marching and a-burning. So how come the GDPR resistance? First up comes the sheer catatonic boredom of the subject. You are all grown-ups who believe that the customer is king. You will jump through hoops to avoid upsetting your customers. Why then would you need legislation to tell you to guard their data like a newborn baby? Next comes the size issue. Almost all garment decorators are small businesses (my definition: fewer than 20 employees). Meanwhile the provisions of GDPR are transparently aimed at big companies (those with more than 250 employees). Itʼs a sad truth that governments (which employ tens of thousands) struggle to make that distinction.
So the business owner shrugs his shoulders, tells himself this must be irrelevant and tosses the paperwork onto a to-do pile (more likely a to-forget pile) and goes back to being an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, GDPR works like Health and Safety and your tax return: itʼs the same for everyone, regardless of size. Then we have Brexit, which I suspect is the biggest factor in non-compliance. Whatever your overall view of Brexit, one thing we know for sure is that weʼve been promised that it means taking back control. GDPR is EU legislation therefore we wonʼt have to abide by it once we leave, so why go through the aggro of compliance now? Simples!
Business owners are also entitled to admit to confusion. In researching this article I saw on one Google page, ʻfive ways to get compliantʼ, ʻsix best practice actions on GDPRʼ and (not to be outdone) ʻthe seven best GDPR tipsʼ. Predictably they were very similar, not least in claiming that this was all that anyone needs.
The French authorities have, in January, fined Google €50 million for GDPR breaches – a lot of money, but pocket fluff to them. There are outstanding claims against Apple, Amazon, Spotify and You Tube all regarding cavalier
| 22 | May 2019
treatment of the GDPR laws. My guess is thereʼs a really big case coming. Itʼs a case of watch this space.
Top recommendations To my eye, GDPR is all about admin, whereas youʼd almost certainly be happier chasing new business or developing new products. Here are the best recommendations Iʼve seen. Your database is a vital business asset, so look after it carefully. Where is your data, who is responsible for it who has access to it. Those are the basic questions you need to be instantly able to answer if the GDPR ʻpoliceʼ come calling. The regulations demand transparency of how you collect and use data. You need to have a clear audit trail of all activities using customer data (see what I mean about it being big company centric?). Ideally, to my mind that means all relevant work being completed on the same desktop computer and downloaded to the same if done remotely
Do you already have a written privacy policy and terms and conditions? If not, get one written and made public at your premises. Check out the web for content or simply copy what a major retailer or other relevant business does.
What do you plan to do if things go wrong? I suggest that this is a sound policy to put in place anyway and few businesses do it. Where GDPR is concerned, ʻwe plan not to have things go wrongʼ is not enough. Having a solid plan of action in place in regard to how to deal with the situation and how to inform your customers will help to reduce potential backlash. The ICO website has posted set guidelines on the key actions to take in more detail.
Believe it or not, there is a benefit for your business in this. Itʼs called trust, a very important edge to any business. If the customer sees clearly that you have done your very best to implement GDPR, he or she will have more faith in you and your processes. I suggest that you will be put ahead of your competitors in the process. Finally make sure that you and all your
staff are fully trained on how you implement GDPR and that the training is kept up to date. I am confident that plenty of business owners will regard this as a waste of time, but I suggest that is short sighted. There are lots of good reasons why other companies do business with you and ʻtheyʼre right on top of this GDPR malarkeyʼ is similarly another selling point.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
t the end of January 2019, as few as 17% of businesses were properly GDPR
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