With consumer privacy and data security becoming more of a concern for businesses, it is essential that your website design be compliant with the many laws pertaining to its use.
Website design services must now take the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws that became effective May 2018 into consideration when designing online security.
If you don't want to face a violation, it is important to learn about GDPR and how it affects your company. Then work with experienced business website design services to ensure your website is compliant.
What Is GDPR?
GDPR is the European Union’s new policy on data privacy. It was designed to control the way data is collected by a website and what can be done with this data.
Although GDPR addresses data privacy concerns, it affects website design in a variety of ways. Business website design services must now take GDPR into account whenever a site is created for a business owner.
Who is Affected by the EU GDPR Policy?
Although GDPR is an EU policy, website design services point out that it may still affect both your business and website in the United States. The policy applies to any company that does business from within the EU or has customers in the EU from whom it collects personal data.
In other words, if you sell products to people in a country that is a part of the EU, your business must protect a customer’s personal information according to the GDPR.
How Does It Affect Your Website?
Generally speaking, GDPR applies to any website design that collects personal data, meaning anything from the more obvious name, address, and financial information of customers used for sales purposes to IP addresses and cookies used for marketing purposes.
GDPR specifically addresses certain concerns, some of which are already addressed in U.S. privacy policy and others that are not:
- Cookies and IP Tracking - Both cookies and IP tracking are used for marketing reasons. GDPR states that a company’s website must have a disclaimer of their cookie and IP tracking policy that explains what cookies and other information is collected and how it is used for user identification, remarketing, and other things.
- Online Forms - Per the GDPR, online forms created by website design services may no longer include pre-checked boxes as this implies consent that has not actually been given by the user.
- Secure Online Payment - As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to keep a customer's financial information safe according to U.S. and GDPR privacy policies. Discuss your financial transaction needs with business website design services to ensure that your site has appropriate encryption, SSL, and other security measures.
- Opt-Out and Easy Unsubscribe - Any site that collects information or offers sign-ups must also offer an opt-out option and an easy, obvious means for unsubscribing.
- Social Network Advertising - Companies that plan on using email lists as part of their social media advertising campaign must disclose this to users who must now opt-in.
- Breach Reporting - Like U.S. privacy policies, GDPR outlines specific instances where website data breaches must be reported by all companies within the scope of its policies.
To ensure compliance, your U.S. owned and based company is required to comply with GDPR policies if you have customers living in the EU. The website design must be secure, disclose information about data collection and use, and provide a few other specifics to customers for their protection.
In the End
The best way to ensure that your business complies with this new policy is to have a site review done by website design services experienced with the new GDPR policy.
Business website design services will know what changes should be made to your website so you can do business without the risk of violating U.S. or GDPR privacy laws!