Don’t concentrate on the fines, concentrate on the spirit of GDPR – it’s here for good reasons!
20 years ago…
The Data Protection Act was passed 20 years ago. But as you may have seen, things change:
- Nokia 5110 was the best selling phone
- Windows 98 and Google had recently launched
- The Internet has grown from 147 million users to 4 billion users!
- Furbies were the most popular Christmas present – eek!
Data has dramatically changed since PECR was introduced in 2000. Data points have been estimated to have grown to over 10 million due to the technology available to us (cookie, IP, location tracking, etc).
GDPR is tasking us with the opportunity to think about how we handle data compliance, such as:
- Letting users know they are being tracked
- Allow users to opt-in to any marketing requests
- Give users the opportunity to remove any data they no longer wish to be stored
GDPR is an evolution, not a revolution! – It should only pose a threat for those who are already struggling to comply with the current law.
What can GDPR help with?
Simon Hall, speaker at the DMA data protection 2018, used a great analogy to challenge the concept that the more we know about our customers, the better their experience, and therefore the better our customer relationships will be:
- Example relationship: Husband and Wife
- Data collection: Likes and dislikes = easier relationship
- Overstepping the data collection mark: Location tracking and cameras on the front door
- The reasoning for data collection: Location tracking to help find wife’s phone (she’s always losing it!). A camera on the front door gives the wife the ability to see who is at the door when at home on her own (Calms her nerves).
It’s fair to say that Consumers are usually happy for us to collect transactional data (such as likes and dislikes) as long as the outcome is to benefit their experience. An influx of ‘intrusive tech’ isn’t the problem – as long as you make people aware of what you’re using it for, there is rarely push-back. You can build customer trust by transparently showing information you are collecting and giving them the option to participate.
The spirit of GDPR puts the customer not the customer relationship first!