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.
WHAT DOES THE LEGISLATION MEAN FOR RETAIL AND ECOMMERCE ORGANISATIONS?
Like all other organisations, retail and eCommerce organisations must:
- Access the data stored on them
- ensure the data is correct and modify it as necessary
- Have it deleted (unless needed for legitimate reasons)
- 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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