by Ryan Szot

The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) is the new European privacy law that will go into effect May 25th, 2018.

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR will be replacing the current Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, and its goal is to further protect users’ personal data. By increasing the regulatory requirements regarding data collection, processing, consent definitions, personal rights, and more, the GDPR is a great step forward for individuals in the European Union and abroad. While we are very excited about these new laws as citizens, it does bring about a large impact on businesses all over the world.

How does this affect you?

First and foremost, if your business is in the EU, you will have to comply to all the GDPR requirements. However, it’s important to note that you are not only affected by it if your business is in the EU.

If your business is located outside of the EU, you still need to comply if:

• You are handling personal data in connection with a business establishment you have in the EU
• You offer goods or services directly to individuals in the EU and encourage them to interact with your business

If you are unsure where your business falls, you should seek legal advice. We recommend working with legal professionals to ensure your exact application is compliant with the GDPR’s scope.

Note: If the above does not apply to you, we still recommend complying with the GDPR, as it is very likely that future laws and policies all over the globe will introduce similar requirements.

What is Bizness Apps doing to ensure GDPR compliance?

Bizness Apps has been working towards GDPR compliance for a long time, mostly behind the scenes. Here’s a list of all the actions Bizness Apps is undertaking to ensure GDPR compliance:

• Research all aspects of our product and business for potential impacts from the GDPR
• Work with outside attorneys that specialize in the GDPR for all aspects of our compliance efforts
• Update our Privacy Policy with an optional GDPR supplement and implement data processing agreements where necessary
• Update our Terms of Service
• Implement a strategy for software and engineering upgrades for optimal GDPR compliance
  • Improve our data processing and add security throughout
  • Implement recordkeeping of app customer consent
  • Update mobile source code to 50.2.

• Update CMS with proper tools for our partners to complete personal data requests from users
• Finalize and communicate our full compliance

While we are working on making our products compliant, you will still have to implement changes yourself in order to make your business GDPR complaint. As we want to make complying with the GDPR as easy as possible, we have been creating new tools to help our partners and customers in this effort (read on for more info).

What tools is Bizness Apps building for the GDPR update?

We will be building tools for you to complete the following requests:

• Right to be forgotten: Delete option to the Customer List that will permanently delete all of a customer’s data.
• Right to rectification: Already implemented with North Park, however additional support for user control of consent choices.
• Right of access: Detailed information of what data is collected and processed for customer
• Right of portability: The previously mentioned data can be exported in a usable format.

To find out more about the GDPR regulations and the Bizness Apps tools at your disposition, read on here.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal advice. We encourage you to work with legal and other professional counsel to determine precisely how the GDPR might apply to your organization. The goal of this article is to explain the changes we have made, and the tools we have built for you to help you to become GDPR compliant.