We're sure you've already read about how GDPR will affect digital marketing, and heard about the importance of including privacy notices across your site. So now you know that you need them, we’re ready to delve deeper into what a privacy notice actually is…
What is a privacy notice?
A privacy notice helps people understand how their personal data is used and make informed decisions about whether to share their data on the back of this knowledge.
Simply put, you need to make sure you tell your website users (data subjects) how you are going to use their data before they give you it.
You can’t do this by simply providing a link to your privacy policy anymore.
Why you need to use privacy notices
GDPR is all about making the world of personal data processing fair and more transparent. Gone are the days of organisations being able to stand by the belief that they “earned” your data, so they can do what they like with it.
Personal data is owned by the individual, not the organisation it has been given to.
As the ICO says, “Being transparent by providing a privacy notice is an important part of fair processing. You can’t be fair if you are not being honest and open about who you are and what you are going to do with the personal data you collect.”
What you need to include in a privacy notice
Under the GDPR, the information you provide about how you process people’s personal data needs to be:
Concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible
Written in clear, plain language (especially if you’re addressing children)
Available free of charge
You need to include a privacy notice everywhere on your website that you collect data. It’s essentially a condensed version of your privacy policy that’s tailored to each specific data capture.
When writing a privacy notice, be sure to address the following:
What data are you collecting?
Who is collecting the data?
Will it be shared with any other organisation? Who? (Name them.)
Why are you collecting this data?
How will you use it?
Can they opt out of you using their data later down the line?
Include a link to your full privacy policy where users can read about the above in further detail.
What does a privacy notice look like?
Writing your privacy notice should be easy enough - but how should it be presented?
There are two ways to format a privacy notice that the ICO supports.
