Consumer rights and GDPR

Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that GDPR brings consumers a range of rights that need to be respected. All companies should be ready to deal with these new regulations by making sure their staff are familiar with the legislation, as well as trained on how to respond to individuals who may invoke the rights that are available to them under European law.

This post will give a quick overview of consumer rights under GDPR and how LeadDesk can help you abide by them.

The right to be informed

highlights the need for transparency, which relates to how you process an individual’s data. What this means is that individuals have the right to know how you will process their personal information. The easiest way to deal with this right is to post your privacy statement online, where it can be easily accessed by anyone.

With LeadDesk software, you can create both an SMS and email template that your agents can easily send to any individual who asks for this information.

The right to rectification

protects individuals from companies processing false, outdated or incorrect data. What this means is that individuals can ask that their data be updated or corrected.

Using LeadDesk, both agents and admins have the possibility to edit contact data, which can then be stored back in the original source, ensuring that all data is current and correct.

The right to erasure

most commonly known as the right to be forgotten, gives individuals the right to ask that their data be removed or deleted from a database. When this request is made, companies are obliged to erase all data about the individual unless they have a legal basis to store it.

LeadDesk has a tool that lets admin users easily find and erase contact data .

The right to restrict processing

gives individuals the right to block or suppress the processing of personal data. This means that you still have the right to store the data, but not the right to process it. However, it’s important to remember that you can retain enough data to ensure that you can respect the restriction in the future.

With LeadDesk this can be done easily by using the black-list tool, which will ensure that you don’t contact the same individual again. All non-relevant data can then be deleted.

The right to data portability

ensures that individuals can reuse their personal data across different services. Individuals are allowed to transfer or copy personal data from one environment to another, so companies need to be able to facilitate this process.

The right to object

enables individuals to:

• object to processing based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority (including profiling)
• object to direct marketing
• object to processing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics

It should be noted that only the right to object to direct marketing is absolute, meaning that the individual does not need to demonstrate any grounds for objecting, nor are there any exemptions. 

LeadDesk offers a sophisticated black-list tool, which enables you to opt-out any contact that does not want to be contacted again.