You might have noticed getting mails from various websites and newsletters in your mailbox regarding their updated privacy policy. This has to do with the European privacy regulations known as GDPR. Most of you will be like “sure, whatever”, but this also impacts your community and you most likely have to apply changes to your community. Note that these changes has to be implemented before May 25th, 2018.

Without going too much into the details, here is a short checklist for you to check if you need to update your policy and website (provided by WP GDPR Compliance):

Do you have a contact form?

Make sure you add a checkbox specifically asking the user of the form if they consent to you storing and using their personal information to get back in touch with them. The checkbox must be unchecked by default. Also mention if you will send or share the data with any 3rd-parties and which.

Can visitors comment anywhere on your website?

Make sure you add a checkbox specifically asking the user of the comment section if they consent to storing their message attached to the e-mail address they’ve used to comment. The checkbox must be unchecked by default. Also mention if you will send or share the data with any 3rd-parties and which.

Is there an order form on your website or webshop present?

Make sure you add a checkbox specifically asking the user of the form if they consent to you storing and using their personal information to ship the order. This cannot be the same checkbox as the Privacy Policy checkbox you should already have in place. The checkbox must be unchecked by default. Also mention if you will send or share the data with any 3rd-parties and which.

Do you provide a forum or message board?

Make sure you add a checkbox specifically asking forum / board users if they consent to you storing and using their personal information and messages. The checkbox must be unchecked by default. Also mention if you will send or share the data with any 3rd-parties and which.

This takes some time, so better start now

This is just the tip of the iceberg since there is much more you can and might have to research. Be sure to read up on the changes for when you are using Google Analytics, 3rd party plugins or use Patreon for instance.

Besides getting the users consent, you also have to communicate how you secure user information, if you share information with other parties (if so, what information and to whom) and be able to provide a user with all personal data you on them and the ability to purge all that data if requested.

Just do it!

Penalization for noncompliance comes in the form of tiered fines that scale to the severity of the violation. Fines cap at 4% of annual turnover or €20 million, whichever is greater. So be sure to put some time into this since it might bite you in the ass later down the road!

We did so too

We also just updated our policy and will inform the ones who have commented on a article/giveaway in the past via an email. You can check out the privacy policy to see how we deal with information. Note that we are still learning new things about this change and how it affects Angry-Mob. So some information is still subject to change.