Three Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Privacy Statement

It’s been almost 6 years since the general data protection regulations, GDPR, came into force across the EU.

The world has changed and UK businesses have faced many challenges in that period. But the trend towards greater legal protection for personal data has continued, and there is more legislation across the world governing the rules and requirements around data protection.

It's more important than ever that data privacy is taken very seriously by all companies and organisations, which includes you and your business.

Did you know that you're legally required to have a GDPR compliant privacy statement as soon as you start handling client data? Not when you make your first sale, but as soon as you collect the first piece of client identifiable information, such as someone's name or email address. You should not wait until you have your first paying client - you must have a compliant privacy statement before you start collecting or processing any customer or client data. 

As a business owner, it is crucial to have a Privacy Statement for your business. Here are three reasons why:

1. It’s the law.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), organisations must publish a Privacy Statement (or Privacy Notice) explaining to individuals how their personal information is used. Unlike your internal privacy policy, which will include the processes and measures your business uses to keep personal data safe, the Privacy Statement must be made available to all customers, clients and other interested parties at the point of data collection. The easiest way to do this is to put your privacy statement on a page on your website and add a link to every page - this link is often located on the footer of each page.

2. Trust, transparency and control.

In the age of mass data collection, the potential for personal data to be used for commercial purposes and financial gain is a real and genuine concern for many people. One of the main aims of the GDPR was to restrict big businesses from capturing personal data and using it inappropriately.

Google have been fined in total, by several different European countries, in excess of €200 million for GDPR violations. And in May 2023 Meta was hit with the historic fine of €1.2 billion by the Irish Data Protection Commission for its data handling activities. Whilst these are extreme examples, the same rules apply to all companies under GDPR and it's not just the big tech giants who get this wrong. Smaller companies do too, with the breaches and penalties reported and made public on the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) register. In November 2023, the ICO issued three fines totalling £170,000 for illegal direct marketing. Digivo Media Ltd, MCP Online Ltd and Argentum Data Solutions Ltd were fined £50,000, £55,000 and £65,000 respectively for various marketing activities which under GDPR constituted direct marketing without valid consent.

Having a comprehensive Privacy Statement offers transparency to customers about how their personal data is being used, promoting a level of trust between companies and their customers.

Customers want their data to be protected and they also want some level of control over how their data is used by providing a route to have their personal data amended, or its use restricted. 

3. Having a GDPR compliant privacy notice is requirement to run ads.

You must have a Privacy Statement to be able to use some marketing platforms. For example, it is a requirement of Facebook that a business must have a GDPR compliant Privacy Statement in order to run Facebook ads. If you plan to use online marketing for your business, now or in the future, a Privacy Statement will be required.

Handling client data is really important and we want to help you ensure that you have your data privacy obligations covered in the easiest and most affordable way. To support this we are running an incredible Data Privacy offer from now until 30 April 2024.

Get our plug and play Privacy Statement now for less. You'll get a clear, easy to understand legally compliant Privacy Statement AND when you purchase from us you can rest assured that the template will be updated every time the law changes, and with the constantly evolving data protection legislation this happens a lot!!

A significant update was made to our Privacy Statement in 2023, to reflect the legislation changes following the landmark ruling against Meta involving data transfers outside of the EU, as well as AI data use. We updated our privacy template and supported our customers through the changes at no extra cost. Once you buy a template from us you always get access for free to the most up-to-date version.

Our Privacy Statement is usually £97, but by using coupon code PRIVACY50 at the checkout you can buy this with a discount of just over 50% and get the template for £47, when you buy before midnight on 30th April 2024.

To make it even better value, and to support you with managing the data handling side of running your business, if you buy before the end of April you will also be get our online course, Privacy and Data Protection, usually £99, for FREE. This short course includes training videos and a checklist to simplify the important task of managing and handling client data.