GDPR: are you handling your data properly?

Are you handling your data properly? Do you know how to handle your data properly to be GDPR compliant?

You understand that sending personal data in an Excel spreadsheet isn’t allowed, right? We know – yikes! But we’ve seen that happen before.

Why is GDPR compliance important?

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance isn’t just important, it’s the law. Unauthorised, careless or ignorant processing of personal data is a violation of a person’s rights and freedoms, as well as having the potential to impact their financial security.

Getting your data handling wrong can have huge consequences for a business. Not only is it a fineable offence (TikTok was recently hit with a £12.7 million bill for illegally processing children’s data), but it can do significant damage to your company’s reputation.

How can I ensure I’m handling my data correctly?

Make sure you get advice from data handling experts, like us. The safety and security of our clients, as well as ourselves, when it comes to data law and compliance is paramount.

Here are just a few of the common GDPR practices we undertake for our partners:

• Carrying out assessments to make sure you process personal data in a lawful way.
• Considering whether the person whose data you want to collect needs to give their consent.
• Ensuring data is only kept for as long as you need to.
• Only letting people have access to personal information if they need it for their job.

But contracting an external company to help can come with its own risks as well, surely? The more cooks in the kitchen, the more likely there will be a spill.

Not with us. We work with companies on an individual level to work out what measures we need to put in place. But we also stick to strict data processes and protocols that all our team members abide by at all times.

With every partnership, our minimum data protection measures include:

• Working on a secure and encrypted VPN.
• Using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) when needed to transmit data to ensure it is never downloaded locally.
• Employing CRM Specialists and approved contractors to minimise cross-border transmission.
• Keeping data within a client’s own MarTech infrastructure wherever possible as an extra layer of security.

It’s not uncommon for businesses to be unaware that their data processes are breaking GDPR law, so it’s well worth having a chat with a specialist CRM agency and data experts (hello!) to see where improvements can be made, and how quickly.

After all, customers are unlikely to stick with a company that’s careless rights and personal information. And losing the trust of your customers could cost you a whole lot more than just a fixed fine in the long run.