Dealing with Data – The Importance of GDPR.
It’s a funny old world. In my last article where I examined the problem fo Web Companies ghosting their customers when they go bust, I received a number of positive comments. I did get one negative one, and that was someone who didn’t like the picture I chose. It was a stock photo. They said. Why couldn’t I use one of my own? They said. I know I use stock photos, they are a great time saving tool and I am no photography expert!
Anyway enough moaning- this one has the European flag on, goodness know the stick I will get for that. I’m also dealing with the most dreaded of subjects; GDPR.
General Data Protection Regulations
It’s a set of rules, that is designed to protect you and your data, so that organisations that you deal with have to treat it with a bit of respect. And so they should! GDPR has been a bit too long coming if you ask my opinion. For far too long big organisations (and smaller ones) have been able to throw ‘caution to the wind’, using your data to their own advantage, whenever they see fit. At least the introduction of GDPR has made companies think about data, as an extension of you.
The Seven Main Principles of GDPR
The seven main principles of GDPR are:
- Lawfulness, fairness and transparency
- Purpose limitation
- Data minimisation
- Accuracy
- Storage limitation
- Integrity and confidentiality (security)
- Accountability
How Do We Deal with this.
When you first arrive at the Hipposerve website you will be greeted with a cookie banner, here you can opt in or out of any non functional cookies that we use for gathering statistical information. Functional cookies, that are required to keep the site working are always retained. You can change these settings at any time by clicking on the little tab on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. On our main website the suppose of the statistical cookies is so we can see who is visiting our site in order to improve services for them.
The Purpose of Collecting Data Beyond the Website
Once you become a customer there are other reasons why we need to hold some information about you. We need to know basic contact details so we can get in touch if there is an issue with your site or payments. If you register a domain name, you also need to provide contact details to prevent fraud. Any domain name ending in .uk has this information hidden. However other domain names may not and you will have to purchase ID protection in order to hide these contact details.
Data Minimisation and Accuracy
We want the absolute minimum data about you. Only stuff that needed by any payment gateway you are using, for us to make contact with you, and for you to register any domain name services. We recommend that when you sign up for our services you use a strong password, to protect your data. For additional security, you will be asked to answer a security question. We also recommend that you enable 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) on your account to protect it even further – especially if your website is handling sensitive information of its own.
We want the data we get from you to be accurate. Initially after sign up you will be sent an email verification notice. Email is probably the most important bit of information about you. It’s our main form of contact and you need it to log on to your customer portal. From time to time you will be asked to review the information that we hold on you, so we can update our records and the records of the domain registrar.
Storage Limitation
Whilst your account is active with us we will continue to store your data. If however you have an inactive account we will store your data for 5 years (for UK tax purposes), before it is removed automatically by our systems. You can ask to have your account deleted. This will delete all your services and remove your personal data. But for the reasons mentioned above we will have to retain the anonymised data for 5 years.
Transparency
You have a right to know the data we store about you. In order to facilitate this easily we have included a tool in your account settings where you can download everything that has occurred on your account from the day you set it up. To access this you need to go to your accounts menu
Select Account Management and you will get our dedicated GDPR panel.
Here you can choose instantly what information you wish to download.
Hipposerve’s Accountability
We take our data accountability very seriously and I have discussed before how we make sure that we keep your data is safe – you can read much more about that in this article here. and more generally here.
We are always happy to advise on thing to do with website hosting and our partnerships with other organisations. Just drop us a line at our support desk.
About Us
Hipposerve is a UK based company offering Web hosting, domain names, specialist email services and a range of other features to help you make your online statement. We offer outstanding customer support that always works on a personal level. You will always be treated as an individual – not just another customer. We also have a range of tools to help get you started:
Hipposerve Domain Tools
1. Domain Price List – updated daily
2. Domain Promotions – updated daily
3. Domain Suggestion Tool – (this is currently only compatible with a few tlds, but can be used to find good names for the others)
4. Domain Registration – (this allows you to filter down the tld’s into different categories to make it easier to find them)
Ordering a hosting package is a fully automated process which can be completed from our website. If however you wish to discuss package options with us, or any other hosting related query; just drop us a line at our support desk.
You can also phone us on 0330 043 1502.
Don’t forget to visit us on our Facebook Page and our Twitter Feed for latest price information.
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