What is it?

If you don’t know.

The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is an EU directive and the biggest update to privacy laws in 20 years (take a look HERE) and it’s well overdue. It’s an almost complete overhaul of the previous Data Protection Act of 1998 and will change how businesses across Europe collect customer data and how they process and handle said data.

   Put simply it means companies need to be transparent with how they hold customer data and how they use it. It also changes how companies collect customer data and how they may or may not share it, so there will be no third party sharing unless expressly permitted by the customer. Mailing lists are going to become a thing of the past!

   At its most basic level it means that customers will only receive the data that they really want to. But working in SMS you probably already know all of this!

When is it?

The date for GDPR compliance is 25th of May 2018.

How does it affect you as an SMS advertiser?

Don’t start rioting just yet, a lot of what has been said is scaremongering and though it can be a headache, the process of becoming GDPR compliant could be a huge opportunity for you. Though it may result in a smaller customer base, that base will be fully invested into what you are offering  them, and therefore you won’t be wasting money trying to reach people who don’t wish to be reached! It can be an opportunity for you to iron out any issues you might have with customer data and promote a stronger bond of trust between yourself and your customer. So fear not, this is a good thing.  It’s different, but it’s good – the people receiving your texts or emails will have either fully opted in to marketing emails or texts or you will have a legitimate interest in communicating with them.

    However this is certainly a bad thing if your business centres around unsolicited communications, spam or selling off mailing lists to third parties.

    If using the consent grounds for processing, customers must hard opt-in to receive information from you so none of those little pre-checked boxes that can slip by a person who’s in a rush to get their sign up process finished and no messages about about offers if all the customer needs is information on a delivery!

    Two key phrases I’ve found helpful are Explicit Unambiguous Consent and Legitimate Interest. Keep these in mind and you shouldn’t go far wrong.

Your Responsibilities

We at Voodoo SMS ask that our customers are responsible and fully aware that any databases they upload to our portal need to be fully GDPR compliant, essentially that means that you need to ensure that your data falls under one of the GDPR’s six grounds for processing. More about that can be found here.                                 

     If we feel that there is activity going through our portal which is not GDPR compliant then we are bound by law to act and block accounts, so to save yourself the hassle ensure that all data you hold is GDPR compliant before the implementation of the new laws on the 25th May .

What about Brexit!?

Why do we need to follow an EU law when we’re leaving the EU? We will still be doing a lot of business with countries both inside and outside of the EU. So this means that countries across the globe need to have aspects of their business GDPR compliant otherwise we’d have a complete breakdown of trade.

       The UK is implementing a new Data Protection Bill which largely includes all the provisions of the GDPR. There are some small changes but our own law will be largely the same, it is common sense that the UK retains the  ability to continue to receive personal data flows from the EU after Brexit – “helping to put the UK in the best position to maintain our ability to share data with other EU member states and internationally after we leave the EU”.

    So whether you’re a remainer or a brexiter then rest assured your data will still be kept safe and you have the responsibility to keep your customers data safe too.

Should you need any help in wrapping your head around the GDPR then please don’t hesitate to contact our support team at team@voodoosms.com or call on 01484 599 311.