With the release of WordPress 4.9.6 late last week, WordPress website owners now have built-in methods to help them comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data privacy law that goes into effect on May 25, 2018.
If you’re not aware, GDPR is a European Union data protection and privacy regulation which gives more control to individuals over their personal data.
GDPR impacts anyone inside or outside of the European Union who processes or saves personally identifiable information of any person in the European Union.
Which means anyone who has a website needs to review their website setup and processes to decide whether they need to add GDPR info to their website.
WordPress 4.9.6 and GDPR Compliance
Major GDPR features in the WordPress 4.9.6 release include:
- Personal Data Export
- Personal Data Erasure
- Privacy Policy
While these new features are a good start for getting your website GDPR-compliant, website owners (or their designers/developers) will also need to take a closer look at plugins and themes used on websites.
As well as third-party applications and services to decide what, if any, personally identifiable information is saved.
GDPR Affects More Than Websites
But GDPR doesn’t only apply to websites.
It also applies to your business operations.
If your business is saving personally identifiable information from individuals in the European Union, you’ll need to take steps to comply with GDPR.
Even if your business is not in the European Union.
And the best way to learn what GDPR is all about for your business is to read the regulation and contact your legal consultant for advice.
I’m not a legal expert, you’ll want to talk with your legal advisor about GDPR.
Adding GDPR Compliance Information to Your Website
I had originally planned to publish my post today about adding GDPR compliance info to your WordPress website.
But then I discovered my friend James Cooper had already published pretty much everything I wanted to share in his The GDPR Info I’ve Sent to my Clients post.
James is a web designer in the United Kingdom. We’ve known each other for more than 10 years, after meeting in an online webmaster forum. We often share information about website design and maintenance with each other.
Here’s an excerpt from James’ helpful post
If you have an email newsletter, then you will also need to send out an email so people can confirm that they still want to receive the newsletter. MailChimp and MailerLite both have tools to help with this.
While his post is geared toward businesses and organizations in the United Kingdom, the recommendations about:
- Website audits (and templates)
- Mailing list
- “Buy” buttons
- Contact forms
- Blog comments
- Privacy policy
apply to everyone with a website.
James also includes helpful resources for businesses, churches, and nonprofits to learn about GDPR.
Thankfully, James kindly allowed me to share a link to his post where he explains what he’s sending to his clients to educate them about GDPR and how to add GDPR compliance info to their site.
I’m sending something similar to my clients.
Like James, if you need help adding GDPR compliance info to your site, you can hire me to help make that happen.
Summary
For those of you who have already finished taking steps to make your website GDPR-compliant, great! Glad you’ve completed it.
But if you want to add GDPR compliance info to your own website, check out James’ GDPR info post to update your site.
Or if you prefer to have someone else add GDPR info to your site, contact me or James.
