GDPR – what ESco did next…

If you haven’t heard about it before now, then you must have your head in the sand. GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation. After 22 years, these very important data protection regs changed on 25^th May this year. Primarily with the goal to better protect the personal information of the consumer – you and me. Something which was fairly overdue.

So what have ESco done about this whole GDPR business then?

• Firstly, we appointed third party Data Protection specialist agency, Opt-4 to work alongside us and provide invaluable information and guidance

• Next we appointed an inhouse DP Officer, our Technical Manager, Matthew O’Malley, alongside an internal “working group” to support him

• Then we set about collating and organising all information, guidance and research in a particularly busy fashion, (almost losing our heads…but protecting yours) in order to build a thorough 12 step GDPR plan for ESco and our Clients, following the guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico).

• Alongside our GDPR specialists, we created template documents with GDPR ready Privacy Policies, Consent Statements and Updated Cookie Policies for our Clients to use on both the websites we host for you and your own websites.

• In order to demonstrate our compliance, we provided a clear addendum to our contracts with our clients, outlining ESco’s responsibilities and advised practices under the new regulation.

• We have been providing our Clients with telephone support with access to our appointed Data Protection Consultants on any of their GDPR queries.

• In March we held our first ESco Connect event. The goal? To communicate all we’d learned about GDPR, to simplify the complexities of the changes, to provide a relatable and easy to digest presentation and finally, to allay all concerns about the upcoming GDPR changes. One attendee commented, “I found the day really engaging. It was really helpful that the speakers related the topics discussed back to our day to day, this improved my understanding vastly and I am able to apply the knowledge I gained during the day.” You can read more about our event here.

What now?

With our new processes in place, you’ll find our team are slightly hardened versions of their former selves, with their new instilled mission, to protect your data as if it were their firstborn.

Our latest, exciting development, the Client Portal will provide a secure place to load and transfer valuable reports and to provide live reporting analysis. Invaluable opportunities to analyse figures at the click of a button, and check live stock (not to be confused with livestock) figures.

There are, of course, some annoyances that come along with the GDPR changes, but there are also some real opportunities to be had (some of which you can read about here). We’re helping our clients to reach out to existing and lapsed subscribers through direct mail, which has a slightly more liberal ruling where GDPR is concerned.

In some ways, the deadline of May 25^th, marked both the beginning of all the changes and the end to all the hype. But what are you going to do with it all? When life hands you lemons…

Read more about how to make the most of the big GDPR shake of 2018 here