Becoming GDPR compliant

Answer:

Where consent has been given under the Data Protection Directive, it will continue to be valid under the Regulation only if it meets the requirements of the Regulation. This may be difficult given the new and stringent requirements for consent. Thus, some businesses should therefore consider approaching their existing customers to obtain a fresh consent that is valid under the Regulation. However, this is likely to be an onerous exercise and in many cases will not lead to a fresh consent.

The ePrivacy Directive imposes additional constraints if you market by telephone, email or fax. For example, you can only send direct marketing to someone by email if:

- they have given you consent; or
- you have an existing relationship with them and fall within the so-called similar products and services exemption.

The ePrivacy Directive currently defines consent by reference to the Data Protection Directive. This will automatically be superseded by a reference to the Regulation from May 2018 onward. In other words, obtaining consent to market by email will become a whole lot harder as well.

So, my advice would be to assess if the consents you got are compliant with the new EU GDPR requirements. If they do you should be fine if they don’t you need to get new compliant consents.

For more insight on how EU GDPR will affect marketing you can check out our article “How does GDPR impact marketing activities?” https://advisera.com/eugdpracademy/blog/2018/02/08/how-does-gdpr-impact-marketing-activities/