GDPR Compliance Questions Marketers Must Ask Their Vendors

When the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation came into regulation back in 2018, there were several questions on the minds of businesses collecting, processing, and selling user data and the ad vendors the said data was being sold to. Most of those questions were centered around GDPR compliance.

The GDPR is a set of guidelines to which businesses must adhere or risk being punished. It does not mean that businesses are barred from collecting and utilizing data. Instead, it asks companies to justify the necessity of information gathered, usage, processing, and sharing it with vendors of the third party.

EU’s data privacy law provides users with more options with the ability to opt-in or out of collecting data. Businesses are now required to offer the option to users to erase their personal information. In turn, because of the strict and robust privacycompliance requirements of the GDPR, it has inspired a number of similar privacy laws across different states and countries, including CCPA, LGPD, and more.

The GDPR doesn't just apply to businesses operating within the EU. It affects companies that service EU residents as well. It could be an American or Australian firm. However, if you're collecting information from citizens of the EU, GDPR compliance is mandatory.

The efforts to ensure compliance with EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are not limited to your front door or at the firewall. Recognizing the movement of data across in the modern economy, GDPR has various requirements that require companies to cooperate with its vast network of ad vendors when processing personal information that are the data of EU residents. These obligations and dependencies could alter how marketers choose and interact with service and vendor providers.

 

The GDPR complicates marketer-vendor relationships.

The current EU laws on data privacy apply to data controllers - the entities that decide on the goal and method of processing data. The GDPR extends the obligation to comply with data processors -- the businesses that perform processing under the direction of the controller. Additionally, the GDPR creates the possibility of joint liability in a lot of cases, which means that processors of data (and sub-processors) may make any "innocent" controller penalties, such as fines and other fines. The same goes for processors. They will need to be much more vigilant regarding what they do business on.

The requirement to ensure that personal information has been collected in a legally compliant way (i.e., through consented data collection from the consumer or another legal reason outlined by the law) is not limited to the company's first-party information but also to information from other sources, like dealers' networks or other third-party data brokers. Companies may have to develop new and more precise processes to verify that the data source is in compliance with.

 

What are the five questions regarding GDPR that marketers must ask vendors?

Due to recent developments regarding the GDPR, the marketing community is in a relative bit of flux. Hence, there are a number of questions marketers can ask their ad vendors in a bid to gauge GDPR compliance. There are five main questions to ask your vendor in order to ensure that they are on the same page.

What can your products and services do to assist me in implementing data protection through design?

Vendors must be willing and able to talk about options like access control and secure information exchange protection against data leakage and detection of breaches. Beyond security concerns, you must consider how the solution can let marketers work in a manner that is effective and GDPR-compliant.

How do you plan to implement your GDPR compliance strategies?

One of the most apparent indicators of a company's understanding of and commitment to GDPR is the status of its compliance efforts. Do they want to share (and offer best practice guidelines in) its GDPR-related strategy? Do they have an officer for data protection (DPO) responsible for overseeing the data protection strategy and the implementation of the strategy to assure compliance obligation for specific firms and recommended for other companies? What are the steps it is taking to meet the regulations for, for example, consent or legitimate interests?

What's your plan down the line for GDPR compliance?

With the GDPR in effect already, what is most important is the way you adjust not just to survive (i.e., avoid sanctions) but also thrive (achieve an advantage in the market) within the brand-new context outlined as GDPR. Choose vendors who don't just ease the compliance burden but also provide an understanding of how to operate within the GDPR.

What will you do to ensure that your sales and service contracts conform to GDPR's obligations?

Since processors and controllers are now jointly accountable for GDPR compliance, buyers may prefer companies that have made an effort to create suitable contract terms.

Can you show me your compliance?

If vendors acquire personal information from EU residents from sources outside of the EU, they have to provide certainty that it will not pose a risk to you.

 

Marketers will need to be careful in the GDPR landscape.

The EU’s de facto data privacy law has been a tricky challenge for marketers, and it has been evident with a large number of fines handed out to several companies. It was indeed surprising that many of them were oblivious that they needed to follow GDPR and privacy compliance.

 

Since it’s not always easy to keep track of what data is being passed on to ad vendors, you can take the help of tagmanagement tools such as MagicPixel. With server-side tagging and first-party data collection, you can be assured of filtering out any sensitive info before sending it to vendors, blocking certain vendors, and saving user preferences of ‘do not sell’.

Achieve GDPR compliance with MagicPixel within a matter of hours instead of months. Get started today with a demo.