GDPR in printing: how we manage our customers’ data
At Stag Print the privacy of our customers’ data is very important to us; whether it’s marketing print and mailers or managing digital details, we follow strict GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) guidelines to keep their data protected.
Physical aspects of GDPR
Marketing print mailers are a good example of how we use customers’ data to personalise while still maintaining privacy. Take our booklet mailers that we did for St Mary’s University as an example which are fully personalised including the wording on the inside front cover.
Our quality control process for handling mailers is tried and tested and very thorough, especially as they are often made up of multiple elements like personalised envelopes, letters and brochures. We work through letters in batches doing 50 at a time so that we can count and make sure there is not multiple letters to one envelope, this is then checked by a second person. If using envelopes without address windows, we have unique identifiers on both the letter and the envelope so we can match them up easily. This is an essential part of the process as putting the wrong letter in the wrong envelope is unacceptable and can lead to a large penalty.
Digital aspects of GDPR
The other side to GDPR is managing digital data. We ask that all data that we receive from customers is encrypted. When we receive this data it is not sent or passed on by us, only processed for that specific order. And it’s not just letters we post out, we’ve even personalised and posted out bespoke chocolate boxes for one of our clients. Once the order is complete, we work through a GDPR checklist to make sure that all the data is deleted. This includes deleting data from our email servers, print servers, shared files, and the files from our hard drives so there is no trace.
The future of GDPR
The UK’s current GDPR rules are robust and we have been following them to the letter since their implementation in January 2021. They are, however, overly complicated causing headaches for many small businesses. Which is why there are early indications that the new culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, has plans to replace GDPR with a simpler data protection system. She said: “GDPR had been inherited from the EU, and its bureaucratic nature was limiting the potential for businesses” and that a new “business and consumer-friendly, British data protection system” would replace it.
Could this be good news for the print industry? A recent Printweek article suggests it could because of the fear factor GDPR currently creates. The article shares the comments of Phil Newton, chairman at PSE Offline Marketing, who said: “There were so many scare stories when it was being introduced and the big fines that were threatened, it stopped a lot of companies using direct mail completely.”
Whatever the outcome, we will continue to handle our customers’ data with the utmost care while watching with interest as the debate on simpler GDPR rules unfolds.