General Data Protection Regulation

The 'General Data Protection Regulation' is coming in very soon.  It is a very specific regulation to do with records that businesses and other organisations keep of their customers and contacts.

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with this area of our business life that can give some helpful guidance etc?

Many Thanks

I’ve a bit of experience but only as Chair of School governing body also sit on diocesan strategy committees and have had limited training on GDPR.

This regulation is about how we use personal data and how it is shared. We now have a duty to report any serious breaches of personal data to the authorities from 24th May. The onus is now on who holds the information, it is not simply, sorry passed your details by mistake, it could be considered a breach and I’ve been told you will be fined. How it’s going to be administered is another conundrum.

However, from my point of view is that I only hold information mostly freely available information plus some email addresses and plenty of telephone numbers, I don’t have any information concerning ‘personal’ stuff - dietary/medical needs.

The areas that we need to careful over is you sending mail to multiple recipients and that if sending to confirm a number of cleans or promotions that other customer details should not be visible, you should really send as BCC not simply to an address using ‘to’. If you are using mail chimp you will need to check with them about their processes over this new regulation. I have some access information for customers so you will need to ensure that this is secure, mine is on cleaner planner notes. I’d expect something on cleaner planner to state about GDPR. If you need access information in order that you can clean property, the problem here would be if an employee who has used access information leaves or uses for another purpose without your consent, this may be considered a breach.

I don’t know how large or small your business is, but issues arise once you start to access and use data. For a one-man band where you know all your customers I would see little risk but if you have 5, 10, 15 vans then I would seek some professional advice.

From limited training I’ve had, it’s complex and costly for school and healthcare institutions and on the face of it for window cleaners should be pretty simple.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to jamesthered.

I appreciate your comments.  It's certainly given me some direction to think about.

It is a serious matter that could sneak in and give us all sorts of headaches...