What exactly is GDPR?
GDPR is a new regulation that goes into effect on Thursday, May 25th. The General Data Protection Regulation will update and unify data privacy requirements across the European Union. Essentially, it’s a new way to provide transparency around how businesses and organizations handle the personal data of EU residents.
How will it Affect You?
Anyone who markets to, or processes the information of EU residents will need to meet key requirements of this new regulation - even if your business is not based in the EU.
GDPR Requirements as they relate to BenchmarkONE:
Webpage Tracking: GDPR requires that you allow visitors to opt-in to cookie tracking when visiting your website. To help stay compliant, we've added a new option to our website tracking feature. This will prompt visitors to opt-in or out of cookies before you track them in BenchmarkONE. Read more about this feature here
Collecting and Storing Data: Consent is required before you can create a profile for contacts who submit personal information, like name, email address and other personal data. GDPR also requires that subscribers opt-in to email communication. To help meet this new standard, we have added a form option that allows visitors to explicitly consent to share their data with you, be processed by BenchmarkONE, and receive emails from you. Read more about this feature here
Email: If you have EU citizens in your database already, you will need to re-opt them in so you can continue communicating with them. BenchmarkONE can help identify and tag any EU residents in your database. Just send an email to support@benchmarkone.com requesting we do this. We've also added an email template to our pre-designed library to make it simple for you to email your EU contacts for consent. Read more about this feature here.
Data Processing Agreement: As part of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are offering a Data Processing Agreement. If you would like this document to be sent to you, email support@benchmarkone.com and request the agreement. To preview this agreement, click here.
Other important things to be aware of:
Adding check boxes to your online forms or webpage tracking alone does not make you GDPR compliant, it's simply the first step in the process. Remember that you also need CONSENT to send communication to any EU resident (whether they currently exist in your database or not) and to track their activity with cookie tracking.
BenchmarkONE is happy to help identify EU contacts and supply you with resources and tools to make compliance a bit easier. However, we cannot offer legal advice. Please reach out to your legal counsel to find out how GDPR affects you specifically.
Review our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for GDPR updates.