Changes to European data law

[Colin_Mann]

How are you responding to the pending changes to European data law (the General Data Protection Regulations)? It is likely to have a significant impact on marketing in Europe and it will more than likely require those marketing in Europe to drive more towards a fully inbound approach.

It will happen over the next 12-24 months which is not nearly as long as it sounds.

There are a couple of interesting articles below:

Direct Marketing Association​

Marketing Week​

As we all know some European countries such as the Germanic countries already have double opt-in processes but Europe is going to become more strict on a pan-European basis so have you started to consider this? What steps have you taken so far or plan to take?

I’d be interested in hearing from people in the comments and I will share by return.

[Casey_Grimes]

Sorry to bump, but I'm curious if any real metric for "large scale" per the legislation has been defined for DPO requirements. I know in previous drafts language was a bit more specific (250+ employees, 5,000+ data subjects) but the final wording makes things rather vague. Should the previously-cited numbers be considered a benchmark?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

With the event of the GDPR, subscription centers will become very common. We need this idea   implemented ASAP.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

I think this Marketing Week article is the most useful:

Countdown kicks off for EU data regulation changes | Marketing Week

It recommends several immediate actions including:

1. Don't Panic - the legislation only comes into force in 2 years.
2. Undertake an Audit of all your existing businesses areas and document existing practices.
3. Communicate Forthcoming change to the Marketing Communications and all other stakeholders.
4. Start to change systems ahead of the new legislation comes into place. And document the change.

[Colin_Mann]

That's a good article by Marketing Week and I liked the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference - a trilogy in five parts and great books!

Essentially the upshot as I see it today is that if companies are already doing their marketing well then there's no real need for concern but (in particular) those who are just going for high volume rather than quality need to take a good look.

[Colin_Mann]

Some other useful articles/posts:

1. This article covers the notion of legitimate interest and some FAQs e.g. how leads from event can be handled etc. DMA | Article | B2B marketing consent and Legitimate Interest 
2. Legacy Data: DMA | Article | What to do with your legacy data? 
3. The potential impact of Brexit for the UK: DMA | Article | What Brexit means for marketers - Q&A 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately the DMA articles are locked for me...and I am having trouble finding a non-legalese version of the new rules. Any ideas?

[Colin_Mann]

I wrote a blog post that might help you if you can access it - I am not sure whether you can access it but take a look at The changing EU data regulations and what it means to you

The Marketing Week articles in this thread are a good summary.

There's also a lot of good information online e.g. see this PDF and this PDF from third party sources.

[Anonymous]

Good info Colin! Thanks

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Great and Important post/question. Thank you

For others. FYI. U can find info on the laws: Protection of personal data - European Commission

Other articles retrieved from Google:

Veritas: EU Data Protection Laws To Affect All Global Firms

Forbes-May 25, 2016

• Infosecurity Magazine Home » White Papers » How to Comply with ...
  Infosecurity Magazine-May 23, 201

• Mozilla welcomes privacy-boosting GDPR data protection law updates
  BetaNews-May 25, 2016

• What the EU's new data protection laws mean for UK industry
  ComputerWeekly.com-May 24, 2016

• How to handle the new US-EU data regulations
  TechRadar-May 23, 2016

• Comment: New data protection regime carries real teeth
  Opinion-Scottish Daily Record-May 27, 2016

[Colin_Mann]

Great reply thanks Scott - lots of good information there.

We have really just started to look at this issue ourselves - we have been focusing on inbound only in countries such as Germany and Canada for some time and that's the way we will need to go for the likes of the UK too.

Initially this means we might make more use of tactics such as content syndication (in effect bypassing the issue and passing it onto the media vendors) and driving a lot more via Search Engine Management (Google will probably love the new regulations). Generally inbound is the way to go.

It's interesting that one of the articles you shared also touches on the issue of where data is stored as there are likely to be some considerations concerning the server location where data for customers in Europe is kept. This will become more clear over time.