Having a compliant website is crucial for your business to maintain trust and credibility with your customers. When launching a website, you mostly focus on the design and development of it, however you should also pay more attention to legal matters. In some cases, websites are created for temporary marketing purposes only without involving IT or the legal department, resulting in temporary websites that remain online even after 6 months when they are no longer relevant.
Legal issues are as important as the design and development of your website. By not paying attention to legal requirements, you can get monetary fines and brand damage. In this blog, we will discuss the most common mistakes businesses make with making their website portfolio’s compliant and provide tips to avoid these pitfalls.
What is website compliance?
Before we dive into what the common mistakes are, we will first explain what website compliance is. Website compliance refers to the process of ensuring that a website adheres to relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards. It involves making sure that the website meets specific requirements related to privacy, accessibility, data protection, security, and other legal obligations.
These requirements may include information disclosure, consumer protection, privacy and data protection, cookie management, accessibility, and cybersecurity. By ensuring your website is compliant, you can protect your business from potential legal issues and maintain a positive reputation with your customers.
What is GDPR compliance?
GDPR compliant means that your organization is within the scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and meets the legal requirements for handling personal data. The GDPR establishes specific rules for organizations that they must comply with to limit the use of personal data. In addition, eight data subject rights have been defined that guarantees entitlements over an individual’s personal data. This gives individuals more independence over their personal data and how it is used. To make the process of GDPR compliance easier for you, we have created a checklist that details the specific procedures you need to follow to ensure that your business and website portfolio are GDPR compliant.
Why is being compliance important for your website?
GDPR protects your users’ privacy and ensures that their information is protected. This means that all companies who handles European users on their website have to apply to these regulations. Although all the challenges, the new regulations also have advantages. The GDPR offers your business an opportunity to reevaluate how you store, share, and protect your customers’ data, . By building trust and nurture customer loyalty, you can position yourself as a trusted source. With good preparation, you will be able to capitalize on new opportunities arising from the GDPR. Read more if you want to know more about what the advantages are of being compliant, click here.
Ensuring Your Website Meets Compliance Requirements:
To create a compliant website, you must consider the type and functionality of your site, as well as the specific regulations that apply to your industry. This may include:
- Information disclosure requirements: Ensure that your website provides accurate and transparent information about your products, services, and company.
- Consumer protection: Implement measures to protect consumers from fraud, false advertising, and other deceptive practices.
- Privacy and data protection: Comply with data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), by implementing appropriate privacy policies and data handling procedures.
- Cookie management: Collect data via cookies and obtain user consent before sharing with third parties.
- Accessibility: Make your website accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, by following web accessibility guidelines.
- Cybersecurity: Implement security measures to protect your website and user data from cyber threats.
Take control of your website portfolio and streamline your team’s workflow with our services. Achieve compliance, improve website effectiveness, and maximize security risks. Book a demo to chat one-on-one about how Nixon Digital can help your business.
Mistake 1. Not knowing the Scope of the cookie statute
Obtaining consent to collect personal data is an important first step, but it is not enough to comply with GDPR. To comply with the GDPR, you need to have a system that tracks users’ data throughout the system and makes sure that it is not used for any purpose the user does not agree to. Also, you should be able to provide information about where and how their data is being used and stop using their data at their request. Relying on cookie-based strategies is no longer enough.
Mistake 2. Thinking the GDPR Doesn’t Affect You
Regardless of where you are based, if you are targeting or serving customers in Europe, you must comply with the GDPR. This means that even if your website has a few visitors from Europe, but you are actively advertising in the region or have listed prices in euro’s, you still need to comply with the GDPR. Failure to do so may result in serious consequences.
Mistake 3. Expecting Your IT Team to Know All about GDPR Regulations
One big problem with the legislation surrounding GDPR is that policy experts may feel the need to provide input on technical implementations. This is because the technical teams may not fully understand the complexities of the law. This can lead to errors and slow down the process, as projects must go through multiple stages of technical reviews.
For the above reason, it is important to create a system that allows your legal team to determine what types of data are allowed and provide clear instructions to IT teams on how to comply with those regulations. This saves legal teams from having to understand complex coding and IT teams from trying to interpret GDPR technical jargon.
Mistake 4. Expecting Partners and Third Parties to Be Compliant
Data is no longer confined to a single organization. Alternatively, it can be shared with third parties and external partners. The GDPR makes it clear that organizations responsible for customer data are responsible not only for their own practices but also for errors and problems arising from the use of the data by downstream parties such as suppliers and vendors.
Therefore, it is important not only to create rules and regulations regarding the handling of personal data but also to effectively communicate with partners and third parties about how data is processed. If a user no longer consents, it is important to immediately notify all parties who have accessed the data to avoid legal consequences of violating GDPR regulations. There are also third parties, such as Google Analytics and Google Fonts, that set cookies before consent is given. However, it is your responsibility to find and correctly block all cookies and services on the website until the user has given permission to consent. So you should make sure that this is respected.
Mistake 5. Missing Cookie and Privacy Notices
Who would have thought that not having a cookie banner would be a mistake? Almost every website uses cookies, but it’s more common than you might think for a website to not have a cookie banner. Since the ECJ’s decision in case C-673/17, cookie notices, so-called opt-in procedures, have become mandatory. This might apply on older and of forgotten websites that you might have.
While being compliant is not easy, it is an essential part of any organization doing business in the EU. While the GDPR has many challenges, it also creates opportunities. The most important benefit you gain by achieving GDPR compliance is that it provides long-term data security and data privacy that your customers can trust in you and your business. It is important for websites to be compliant as it protects users’ privacy and can help build trust with customers. To create a compliant website, businesses must consider information disclosure, consumer protection, privacy and data protection, cookie management, accessibility, and cybersecurity regulations.
Common mistakes businesses make with GDPR compliance include not knowing the scope of the cookie statute, expecting the GDPR does not affect them, relying on IT teams to know all the regulations, expecting partners and third parties to be compliant, and not having cookie and privacy notices. Nixon Digital helps you to avoid these mistakes, we are offering services that helps your company reduce risks and stay compliance. It goes even one step further and and give your organization clear overview of your whole website portfolio. Learning from each other’s mistakes is a gift, but what if you prevent the mistake from happening in the first place? Get in touch with us today to keep you, your business, and customers safe.
In conclusion…
Common mistakes businesses make with GDPR compliance include not knowing the scope of the cookie statute, expecting the GDPR does not affect them, relying on IT teams to know all the regulations, expecting partners and third parties to be compliant, and not having cookie and privacy notices. Nixon Digital can help you avoid these mistakes. We provide services to help you to de-risk your business and maintain compliance. It goes a step further and gives you a clear view of your entire portfolio of websites. Learning from each other’s mistakes is a gift, but what if you could prevent them in the first place? Get in touch with us today to protect yourself, your business, and your customers.