GDPR - 4 months on - world still spinning?

By : Administrator
Published 26th September 2018 |
Read latest comment - 28th September 2018

Anyone still breaking into a sweat when you mention GDPR?

Or are you as nonplussed now as you were before May when GDPR came into effect? 

Now if you have no idea what GDPR is, then you have been living under a rock, but thelegalstop did a comprehensive guide so i shall say no more!

From our side, we had to make some considerable (and expensive) changes, primarily to the way were capturing data as in fairness a full audit highlighted we were capturing too much info. Then our mail server and newsletter lists needed some work doing meaning we scrapped around 70,000 historical email addresses and stopped auto opting in people to our mail lists.  To be honest it was a useful if disruptive exercise, making us more efficient, but GDPR in general has gone very quiet.

I was expecting some high profile warnings or prosecutions from the ICO to keep everyone on their toes. But from what I can see GDPR seems to have disappeared from the national consciousness in the same way as the cookie law.

After a recent booking with Premier Inn (July 2018), the final part of the process caught my eye:

Isn't that an auto opt in? (ie you miss it and forget to tick the box) 

So if Premier Inn aren't bothered, I wonder how many other organisations aren't bothered?

Did GDPR impact your business? Did you spend time and resources making yourselves compliant, or were you already squeaky clean?

Any thoughts or have you spotted any big organisations skirting round the rules?


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn
Comments

Still a bit wary lol as not 100 % complaint yet  ..Busy resetting up with a new shopping cart so I can be. Finally got around to splitting my websites into 2 with the smaller 1 being the learning curve , but it's a long process and is getting very boring 


Thanks,
Andy-C | Pewter World

Luckily I don't have a website or a mailing list so I didn't have to change anything and when I do set those up I can be compliant. 

I've noticed that it's easier to opt out in general and I've also been unsubscribing to a lot more emails. Even though I didn't opt in to any of the email mailing lists I got when GDPR started I'm still on nearly all of them so that was a massive waste of time. 

It does seem a bit of a Y2K where everyone panicked and then it's gone to nothing as the deadline passed and no-one got sued, not yet anyway. A lot of people made a tidy profit advising on GDPR though! 

The next big one will be making tax digital....

 


The next big one will be making tax digital....”
 

Yep you're absolutely right, although will be interesting to see how that goes for the 5 million+ small businesses 


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

Yep you're absolutely right, although will be interesting to see how that goes for the 5 million+ small businesses 
 

I know. It's going to be CHAOS. I was speaking to a chap on Monday at the Micro Business Show in Solihull as he has created a business to help people get online with their tax, great idea as lots will need help. I hadn't realised the big impact it was all going to have, seasonal businesses will probably get some leeway but if they don't many will really struggle! I think accountants will make a mint as loads of people will panic and decide they have to use one. I use Quickfile and I now see I will have to pay to upgrade to get the MTD compliant software. The whole thing will mean we all have to be very on top of our accounting that's for sure, with quarterly returns! EEK


Depending you bank with, there are some easy solutions like freeagent. We looked at it but we're sticking with Sage although will have to upgrade our software... again....


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

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