Data Protection for Retail & Ecommerce

Technology and data protection have had a significant impact on both traditional brisk & mortar and eCommerce retailers.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), along with the GDPR mean all retailers must pay special attention to maintaining their sales and marketing databases, recording consent and managing data retention and disposal.

Multi-site retail chains often have different systems in different stores, many of them paper-based, and should consider data minimisation techniques to ensure they don’t hold unnecessary data. Staff training across stores is often needed to ensure all employees understand their responsibilities with regard to data protection.

This page explains what data protection legislation means for retail & eCommerce organisations and the key areas they need to consider when managing personal data.

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WHAT DOES THE LEGISLATION MEAN FOR RETAIL AND ECOMMERCE ORGANISATIONS?

Like all other organisations, retail and eCommerce organisations must:

Be transparent in the way they process personal data and accountable for doing so

Be able to detect, manage, report and respond to data breaches including, if necessary, liaising with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

Understand the data they have, where it is stored and who has access to it

Implement robust processes and procedures to protect personal data

Allow all customers, suppliers and staff to:

Access the data stored on them
ensure the data is correct and modify it as necessary
Have it deleted (unless needed for legitimate reasons)

Appoint a designated data protection officer if they:

Process data on a large scale
Use the data for profiling or automated decision making

IMPORTANT DATA PROTECTION CONSIDERATIONS FOR RETAIL & ECOMMERCE

Retail and eCommerce organisations must protect personal data in a wide range of their operations. Some major considerations include:

Sales and Direct Marketing

Managing consent of individuals receiving direct marketing materials
Impact of Personal Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR) and ePrivacy
Data retention
Data base management and data minimisation

eCommerce

Data held in contact forms
Large quantity
Financial, payment and transactional details
Automatic profiling
Cookies and tracking pixels

Multiple bricks and mortar outlets

Data held in multiple formats and locations
Minimising duplicated data
Disposal and retentions
Legacy and non-standard system
Paper systems

Staff and Training

Training staff to understand their protection responsibilities
Embedding a culture of data protection often across multiple sites staffed by part-time, temporary and permanent staff

Administration

Email systems
Staff payroll, pension and HR records
Access and security CCTV

Data Security

Maintaining network and server security
Data encryption

Policies and agreements

Privacy, retention and data protection policies
Staff handbooks
Data sharing agreements
Data processing agreements

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DATA PROTECTION SERVICES FOR SECTORS

Chloe Steele

360 Dotnet Operations Director

“Our DPO and the overall service has been a brilliant addition to our business. Their expertise has been invaluable in ensuring that we are up to speed with our general data protection obligations as well as those specific to the financial services sector.”

Chris Farman

Bristow & Sutor Technical Manager

“Communication between the DPO, our team and the other organisations we work with has been excellent and this strong working relationship is set to continue and thrive”