The GDPR stands for the General Data Protection Regulation, an EU regulation that will take effect on 25th May, 2018. It's all about improving data protection and privacy for all individuals within the EU – more info here.
How is this blog complying?
Ensuring GDPR compliance will be an ongoing process. I take the privacy of my blog readers seriously – below are a list of the steps I have taken on lifewithscoliosis.com to ensure that the site is GDPR complaint and that your personal information is always protected:
Reviewed and updated my Privacy Policy to bring in line with GDPR – this including adding more information on the personal information collected on this site, how it is used and how you can access it.
Reviewed and updated all of my email signup forms to bring in line with GDPR – this included changing the wording on the forms to make it more transparent and including a link to the Privacy Policy on all sign up forms.
Purchased an SSL certificate to enhance the security of the site – you'll notice the website address now starts with https and should display a padlock. This encryption prevents third parties from gaining unauthorised access to personal data.
Reviewed all Plugins the site was using, deleted ones that weren't being used, hadn't been updated for a while or weren't GDPR compliant.
Checked which of my website Plugins were collecting data, what they were collecting, and that they were GDPR compliant – I then included information on these Plugins in my Privacy Policy.
Updated the contact and comment forms to ensure that they are GDPR compliant – added a tick box so that users have to consent to their data being stored before using a contact form or leaving a comment.
Reviewed and signed data processing agreements for 3rd Party suppliers, including Mail Chimp, Mail Munch and Google Analytics.
Anonymised IP addresses for Google Analytics tracking.
Installed the CookieBot GDPR plugin – this will allow users to opt in to cookies that are not necessary for the site to function (e.g marketing cookies). It also enabled me to carry out a cookie audit and helped me to create a new GDPR compliant cookie policy.
Sent an email to my blog subscribers on the 23rd May 2018 asking them to re-opt in if they would like to remain on my mailing list. Those that did not respond were deleted out of Mail Chimp and Mail Munch.
I'm committed to keeping the site safe and your data secure. If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to contact me or check out my Privacy Policy for more details.