Do you really need to be GDPR Complaint? Well, if you are located in the EU, serve clients in the EU or if people from the European Union can visit and interact with your website, then the answer is, yes, you need to be compliant. If people from the EU can sign up as leads on your website or give you their data in any way, then you must be complaint. If your site uses cookies, like Facebook pixels or collects Analytics from people in the EU, then you must be compliant. Essentially, If people from the EU can surf your site, you need to be complaint.
Ok, so what exactly is GDPR?
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the new European data protection law that replaces the existing 1995 EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC on May 25th, 2018. It will be the sole data protection law throughout all EU member states and also applies to any organization outside the EU that offers goods/services (paid or for free) to individuals within the EU. GDPR applies only to personal data about individuals from the EU and does not govern data concerning companies or any other legal entities.
Consequences of not being compliant.
The consequences are scary. You could be fined up to Europ 20 million or 4% of your global revenue, whichever is greater. Lose the ability to sell to customers from the EU or serve people from the EU in any way. Not be able to monetize any customers based in the EU. Serve legal hassles and costs that will take you away from your business.
Better safe than sorry. Ok, how do I become compliant?
As a pet sitter or dog walker located in Canada or the United States, you may not think that you need to be compliant. If you have a newsletter signup or a blog subscription where an EU person can signup, your website must be compliant. If your website is WordPress, you can use a plugin like WP GDPR FIX, all Barketing Solutions clients on a monthly plan can enjoy access to this plugin. If you are not a Barketing Solutions client, you can purchase this plugin for $22.50.
This GDPR WordPress plugin will help your business comply to the 7 Key GDPR Requirements. It has cookie requirement compliance to make sure that all EU visitors are briefed on your cookie policy. Terms and conditions policy gets your visitors to comply to your terms and conditions and creates consent requirement for your Privacy Policy when they provide personal data to your pet sitting or dog walking company. Right to forget compliance that allows you to delete user data manually. You can also refuse to accept EU traffic to your website, to avoid the consequences.
This is also a great time to show all of your clients how important their privacy is to your pet business.
Erika Godwin is the President of Barketing Solutions and the Co-Founder and CMO of ProPet Software, an industry-leading kennel management software. Erika has over 8 years of experience with WordPress and graduated from Elmira College in 2009 with a BS, Business Administration- Marketing and Management.
