What is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and is your SeoSamba CRM compliant?

Starting 25 May 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will officially replace the previous data protection directive, mostly to harmonize data privacy laws across the European Union, and to protect data privacy for EU citizens.

Past this date, the GDPR will be applicable in all EU members states, and non-compliant organizations may face heavy fines, which is why SeoSamba is giving you a basic rundown on how to ensure compliance, and avoir any adverse effect of GDPR implementation.

How SeoSamba will help you comply with GDPR requests from your Customers

GDPR grants expands privacy protections and rights to your customers. SeoSamba’s GDPR compliance program will help you comply with requests you receive from your customers. 

Right to rectification – You can update your contact’s information at any time. Your contacts can reach out to you directly and you can correct or delete that information for them.

Right to be forgotten – If you receive a request to be forgotten, you’re able to delete a contact, which permanently removes his or her information from your account. If your contact reaches out to us directly with a valid request, we’ll notify you about the request and delete contact’s data from your account, or across all SeoSamba accounts, if requested, in order to comply with GDPR. 

Right of portability - If your contact requests their personal data, you can export their data as a .csv file, which we will make available to you via a secure connection.

Right of access – Make sure that your existing Privacy Policy addresses how you’ll use and manage data. If your contact requests their personal data, you can export their data as a .csv file. 

How You Can Prepare for GDPR with Require Opt-In confirmation

Using double opt-in with clear verbiage ensures you’re complying with the informed affirmative consent requirement to use your contacts’ email addresses and other contact information to send them messages in the future.

The GDPR requires that you make it as easy to opt out as it is to opt in. Our existing unsubscribe links in every email campaign helps meet this requirement.

Familiarize yourself with how to edit and delete contacts

Part of GPDR is the right to rectification, which basically means that a contact can request to have their information updated and corrected. We make it easy for you to find a specific contact and update their information on the contact record. Here’s a help doc for contact management, as well as contact deletion.

Learn how to export individual contacts

Right to portability and right of access requests both require you to be able to export individual contacts. This help document will help familiarize you with this process. 

Add an affirmative consent and usage statements to your opt-in forms

One of the changes to GDPR is that you have to tell them specifically how their information will be used and get their consent. You’ll want to make it clear how you’ll be using the personal data that you collect on your opt-in consent forms. You can add whatever verbiage you want to an SeoSamba form using an HTML block. We’re unable to supply the verbiage you should include because it’s highly dependent on how you’re using the data, however you can use our Terms & Conditions and privacy policy builder to get you started. We recommend seeking the counsel of a qualified legal professional. 

Delete contacts and lists you no longer need

GDPR’s intent is to protect the privacy of EU residents. Part of protecting that data means minimizing the risk that it could be abused or accessed without authorization. In the spirit of this regulation, it makes sense to delete personal data that is no longer necessary. You may choose to delete inactive or unsubscribed contacts rather than keeping them in your account. If you aren’t using the data, it’s safer to just get rid of it. 

Consult with a qualified legal professional 

We’re providing this information to help you prepare as an SeoSamba customer, but the GDPR guidelines are expansive, and will probably impact other aspects of your business. We recommend that you seek legal counsel from a qualified professional to understand the total impact of GDPR on your business. 

Checklist for GDPR Compliance

About SeoSamba

SeoSamba serves thousands of small businesses around the world with service centers in the United States and Europe. Its software is private labeled by large media companies and available in 14 languages.

SeoSamba’s hub-and-spoke technology amplifies marketing effectiveness as companies scale their brand’s footprint. Franchisors can enjoy mechanical incremental benefits in your franchise recruitment efforts from participating franchisees while they generate more leads in local markets.

SeoSamba offers turn-key franchise recruitment and franchise brand marketing for local lead generation packages.

SeoSamba’s hybrid, open-source marketing framework is built around the SeoSamba Marketing Operating System marketing hub and SeoToaster Ultimate CRM +sales automation cloud edition to build and market landing pages, corporate sites, directories and ecommerce websites. SeoSamba also lets you connect, then centrally market and SEO WordPress websites with a free or premium plugin. 

For more information about SeoSamba, visit www.seosamba.com, email us at info@seosamba.com, or call us in the US: + (1) 877.450-9894 or in Europe at + (33) 6756376.