How To Make Your Pre Christmas Campaigns Data Protection Compliant | Dataxcel
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How To Make Your Pre Christmas Campaigns Data Protection Compliant

October 15, 2015

Compliance oh compliance oh compliance it is often perceived by marketers as a fear factor preventing us from doing what we really want to do but believe me this is just a perception.

Let’s look at it in its true context.

Data Protection Compliance is there to ensure that the consumer’s data, which you have harvested at some point in the brand to consumer journey, is protected, collected and used correctly. Wrapped around all of this is the question most compliance officers will ask you  ‘Does the original explicit consent match the actual usage of the data’

So ask yourself when I collected that consumer’s data did I clearly explain the future use of their data and does that use match there expectations.

Now isn’t this a basic principle of marketing, matching data to relevance and within the context of your communications to the consumer  = Proper engagement and positive results so everyone is happy.

The question then is, why do we wait for the various Data protection offices around Europe to force us as Marketers to do what we should be doing in the first place.

Ah well we will all have a different answer to this question but I guess the EU Legislation due out in 2017 will add clarity to that question.

In the meantime here are a few interpretations we picked up from the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s office over the past year.

Direct Mail  – An opt out statement was always a requirement but the ODPC want you to also include the source of the data as part of your opt out statement.

Telephone Data – Clearly state the source of the data as the first line on your telemarketing script and give the consumer the choice to continue with the call or not. This has the net result of eliminating or greatly reducing data subject access requests around such data. 

Email Data – When collecting email data hiding your consent in the terms or privacy link is not good enough you need to state your intended use of the data and if it is being shared with third parties you need to insert a dynamic link stating who the third parties might be.  

Business Data – Contacts in companies under €3m turnover should be treated as consumers and fall within the consumer compliance rules.

 

The above are just a few points we picked up and they are not just our opinions they are the documented view of the ODPC when using the above data channels in Ireland.

But the message is do not fear compliance, we need to embrace it into everything we do and believe me we will all be better marketers as a result. 

All the best

Lorcan

Email Data

Telephone Data

Postal Data

Business data