How to Make Your Website Compliant with GDPR

How to make your website comply with GDPR - Network security has always been a problem since we started sharing our personal information on websites. Even reputable large companies have been the victim of hacks several times over the past few years, putting the information of trillions of users on the wrong hands. That's why investing in cybersecurity and having some clear rules is important. This is where GDPR comes in. It is a new rule that seeks to set a new standard for consumer rights when it comes to data. GDPR says that every company must provide a reasonable level of protection for personal information, but it's not always clear what a reasonable means is. That is why we seek to get a clearer definition of what we need to do to make our business website compliant with GDPR.

What exactly is GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation is a new one in the European Union. Its goal is to enhance the data protection of EU citizens inside and outside Europe. It poses very specific problems for businesses that record customer data. GDPR requires them to take care of customer data much more carefully than before. It also applies to organizations that run applications, use CRM, internal databases, or even email. If they record user information, they should comply with GDPR.

GDPR is also suitable for non-EU citizens. If you run an online retail business in Washington and you have buyers in Europe, they can sue you if you lose their data. So there's really no way to get your website compliant with GDPR if you're looking to do business with European citizens.

If your website is violated, there are some strict deadlines that a company must abide by. They will have to provide notice and report the violation to the country's representative within the next three days. They must share in detail what citizens are affected by the violation. Companies will also have to make their user data portable, which means they can delete all user data if they request it or transfer it to a completely different company. This completely changes the way businesses handle data because of the short deadlines imposed on them

The regulation will take effect on May 25, 2018, which is about two months from now. Companies that haven't started complying with their websites can still do that. The full GDPR document is really long and you probably won't want to read through it right away. So in this post, we've outlined some of the most important things you'll have to keep in mind. Although you will have to read that document eventually.

Details of GDPR

The first and most important thing for every company is to quickly assess where they keep their personal information. Show what applications they are using, what files they are hosting, and so on. What everyone will want to do is add this data security at all levels. Therefore, apply the necessary tools to protect all the personal information you store and begin to monitor your network even more.

But even the best security applications can monitor and catch a lot. A breach will eventually occur and even a large security officer cannot handle 5000 security issues at once. The most important thing to handle is to know exactly where the breach occurred and which data was accessed during the breach.

Companies must be like

Every company that stores and processes information of EU citizens must comply with the GDPR whether it is inside or outside the EU. More specifically, the companies that must adhere to are:

Has a presence in the European Union.

There is no EU presence but the information processing of EU citizens.

There are more than 250 employees.

Fewer than 250 employees but the way the data processing company affects the freedom of data subjects.

Data it protects

GDPR seeks to protect any personal information that users submit to the website. This includes information such as:

Identifiable information such as date of birth, name, ID number and home address.

Data related to health and genetics.

Ethnic or racial data.

Sexual orientation and political opinions.

Web data such as cookies, IP addresses, passwords and locations.

Transparency is the key

Every company will have to be absolutely clear about what data they use. They will have to inform each individual who uses their website about how their data will be used, who will use it and for what period of time. Cost staff will also have to be informed of how long personal data will be stored on the company's server and who they should contact if they have any questions about data processing. . Finally, in the case of a breach, the affected customer must be informed of the breach, how it may affect him and what actions he can take.

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No consent - No data available

Users must explicitly agree to the company to process their personal data. In addition, data used for purposes must be agreed upon by the user. Simply put, if someone writes an email to you because he reads your blog post, that doesn't allow you to add them to your email list, you'll first have to ask them. If the user is a child, the parent or guardian of the child must agree before the company can use their data. Finally, users will be able to withdraw this consent at any time.

Pseudonym

In GDPR, there is a reference called a pseudonym. Basically, it is the process of transforming data in a way that prevents it from being attributed to an individual without providing additional information. This can be done by providing the user with a unique identification number stored in another system. This way, if there is a data breach, only that identifier is stolen, not the user's real name.

Officer

Each company must designate a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who will be in touch with national leaders and representatives and also oversee the internal compliance of GDPR regulations within the company. . Therefore, this is the best time to assign DPO to any company, as this person can prioritize data protection and ensure that the entire website of the company complies with GDPR.

Delete the information

When GDPR is in effect, all users are required to delete all their data. If any of your users ask this, you will have to comply. Everything must go from the backup to any other reference the user may have.

Is the UK affected?

Although the UK will leave the EU soon, it will still be a part of it when the GDPR comes into effect (May 25, 2018). In addition, even if it exits, the UK will apply all EU laws, including GDPR. So if you are in the UK and you do not want to deny your service to EU citizens, you will have to comply with GDPR or face many problematic consequences.

Consequences of non-compliance

Non-compliance with GDPR seems quite dangerous. The maximum fine is 20,000,000 Euro.

In case you use services like Mailchimp, SendGrid and Google, there's no need to worry. Most of these services are run by US companies that are well aware of GDPR and they have complied.

What can you do to get your website GDPR compliant?

As we mentioned above, the first and most important process in making your website compliant with GDPR is to identify all your data processors. Write a list and find out the third-party data processor. Once you've figured out where you're dealing with data, ask the following three questions:

Is using that data absolutely necessary?

Where are you storing that data?

What is that data used for?

If you find some data processed by third party data processors, check their privacy policy on their website and see if they comply with GDPR. US-based companies must adhere to Privacy. If they do not comply with any of these, write them an email and ask them if they plan to comply soon. If the company has any chance of not having an implementation plan until 25 days of the month, you should set out to find a suitable, GDPR company to replace them. When this happens, you should also ask the company to provide you with a copy of the data they hold and delete it on their original system, including backups.

Keep in mind that in this case, data is a serious responsibility so you should not hold anything that is not really necessary.

Check your Privacy Policy Statement and be transparent to your users

One of the main rules of GDPR is to communicate transparently with your users. Tell them exactly why you collect the data, how you will use it, and they can delete all data if they want.

Your website is as strong as its weakest link

When you audit your website, the weakest parts of it will appear and you will have to handle each part. You may have unencrypted traffic or email accounts, all of which are liability. Enhance every weaker part of your website and database or delete it.

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Use a data security officer

If you have a security expert in your company's ranks, now is the time to promote him to DPO. If you don't, it's time to find someone because you will need him. The job of the DPO will be to ensure that your organization is compliant with GDPR. If you are not a large e-commerce company with loads of sensitive data, an existing member of a skilled and experienced organization will do well.

Conclusion

GDPR certainly seems to be threatening with a maximum fine of 20 million euros. It is enough to make you worry when checking your website. It is one of the most essential rules for the internet to keep everyone's data safe. There are many hackers lurking on the web at the moment and they are constantly looking for ways to exploit to get valuable data. So we need all the protection we can get. So GDPR will definitely help you and everyone else in keeping their information safe.