The General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) was the starting point for a different regulatory landscape with many new privacy laws and radical updates to existing laws. Since the official implementation date of GDPR, new privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the Texas Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act have emerged. In addition, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) regulation for payment card software is being replaced by a new Payment Card Industry Software Security Framework.
With all these new privacy laws and updates to existing legislation, marketers can quickly become overwhelmed when trying to comply with relevant regulations to their industry. This article provides five tips for adapting to changing privacy laws and ensuring your organization maintains compliance.
Become a Privacy-First Organization
Accepting the current landscape and shifting to a privacy-first approach is the first step to keeping up with new regulations. By baking privacy into business operations, your organization lowers its risk of non-compliance and improves its flexibility to adapt to new rules.
For example, if you are launching a new e-mail marketing campaign, make privacy a key consideration from the start of the process. This approach has the additional benefit of making employees fully aware of data privacy’s importance at all organizational levels.
Regularly Audit Privacy Controls
The only way to know if your privacy controls are functioning as intended is to test them regularly. Organizations should conduct privacy audits on a twice-yearly or quarterly basis to check for compliance with relevant regulations. A regular audit highlights potential flaws that could compromise private data, which allows you to address those flaws before they result in a severe regulatory breach.
Know Where Your Customers Are
A distinct characteristic of the current legislative environment is that new regulations span multiple jurisdictions. For example, CCPA applies to any website with California users, even if the server or organization is not located in California. Organizations need to have transparency over all their customers’ location and adjust their operations according to local regulations.
Hire an Expert Compliance Agency
In an ever-changing legislative landscape, it isn’t easy to simultaneously keep updated on relevant regulations while maintaining enough focus on other organizational aspects. Hiring an agency or service provider that focuses on compliance as a business is a prudent move, especially for small to medium-sized companies that can’t afford expert legal counsel. Expert compliance agencies or partners provide invaluable help in adapting to changing privacy laws.
Implement Automation
Many of the privacy laws include the users’ right to access. This means organizations must quickly access and share personal data with a user when they request it. This can provide challenges for organizations that don’t have the human capital or infrastructure to quickly and easily compile this information. Developing an easily accessible online form that users can request access to their private data is one way to automate the process while keeping the organization legally compliant.
Sources:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/22/some-americans-dont-use-the-internet-who-are-they/
https://hbr.org/2020/08/data-privacy-rules-are-changing-how-can-marketers-keep-up
https://www.security.org/resources/digital-privacy-legislation-by-state/
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