Fresh Relevance, the realtime online marketing hub whose clients include Homebase, Jessops, Thorntons and Jewson, has claimed it is fully compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), 11 months ahead of the May 25 2018 deadline.
The company has appointed a data protection officer and published a report detailing its compliance procedure, including clear guidance for organisations using the Fresh Relevance platform, to support their own GDPR policies. This is despite the fact that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has yet to publish its full GDPR guidance.
The GDPR is a new legal framework in the EU that aims to protect citizens regarding the processing and usage of personal data. In the UK, it will supersede the Data Protection Act 1998 and the requirement to be compliant will be unaffected by the planned exit from the EU in 2019.
Data protection officer and co-founder of Fresh Relevance Peter Austin, said: “We use machine learning to understand visitor behavior and show relevant real-time marketing, to improve the shopping experience for customers and increase sales for retailers.
“We do not store sensitive personal data, such as passwords or credit card numbers, just shopping behavior and optionally a few items of personal data such as email address. Data from Fresh Relevance is only ever shared with our client and its third-party systems, such as its ESP, and nobody else.”
Austin adds: “We recognise that the GDPR is a major change and very important to our clients, so we have become GDPR compliant one year in advance, to help their own plans to support it.”
Related stories
Cyber insurance ‘unlikely to cover massive GDPR fines’
John Lewis and HSBC slam ‘ambiguous’ GDPR guidance
Lack of GDPR guidance fuels fears over bombardment
GDPR countdown fuels warning of 4,500% rise in fines
84% of UK SMEs have still not heard of EU data reforms
Have they had the ICO assess their compliance with GDPR as some of it is open to interpretation or translation?