Whilst my other posts have focussed on what you, as a business owner, need to do to be ready for GDPR, I thought it would be good to remind you of the benefits of GDPR, for you as an individual:
- You will be able to request access to your data and companies will be obliged to provide it, providing the request isn’t deemed to be manifestly unfounded or excessive, primarily meaning repetitive! The company will need to specify why they refuse if they do so. Previously a £10 charge would have been made for any requests of this nature, however, this is no longer acceptable. You should expect to receive that data securely, however, where a large amount of data is requested, you should expect to specify your requirements.
- To have inaccuracies corrected. Data should be reviewed by companies on a regular basis, and updated for any inaccuracies.
- To have their personal information erased. Just because you signed up for a newsletter once, doesn’t mean you have to continue to receive it. With GDPR you have the right to have your data removed from the distribution list, and deleted entirely from the companies’ systems.
- To prevent direct marketing. We all hate it, right?!! With GDPR you can determine what marketing you’re happy to receive and what you don’t want anymore.
- To prevent automated decision-making and profiling. So what does this mean? The definition I found stated that it’s ‘an automated decision made following processing of personal data where no humans are involved in the decision-making processes and where the automated decision can have a significant impact on the individual (ie where the decision relates to job performance or creditworthiness etc)
- Data portability, ie to have the right to your own data in order to use it for your own purposes across different services.