GDPR Compliance Deadline is May 25th

gdpr compliance - wordpress updates

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was finally approved by the EU Parliament on 14 April 2016. Enforcement date: 25 May 2018 – at which time those organizations in non-compliance may face heavy fines.

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR protects all EU citizens from privacy and data breaches in an increasingly data-driven world that is vastly different from the time in which the 1995 directive was established. Many changes have been proposed to the regulatory policies; the key points of the GDPR, as well as information on the impacts it will have on business, are:

  • Increased Territorial Scope (extra-territorial applicability)
  • Penalties
  • Consent

And the data subject’s rights:

  • Breach Notification
  • Right to Access
  • Right to be Forgotten
  • Data Portability
  • Privacy by Design
  • Data Protection Officers (when applicable)

For a more detailed description visit the eugdpr.org website.

Who does the GDPR affect?

The GDPR not only applies to organizations located within the EU but it will also apply to organizations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behavior of, EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location.

For information about the fines associated with non-compliance and other GDPR compliance related topics, visit this site: https://gdpr.eu/faq/

What are we doing to help you?

We pride ourselves in our processes around Maintenance/Security-related WordPress upgrades. Our commitment to you as your WordPress Hosting Provider is to keep you on the latest and greatest version of your WordPress branch. Typically, releases take shape in two ways: maintenance/security and functional updates. Maintenance/Security releases contain bug fixes and security patches to existing WordPress features, while Functional updates introduce new features on top of bug fixes.

With WordPress 4.9.6 coming this week, we will be seeing a few new features built around GDPR compliance. This release is different in that it is introducing new features in a Maintenance/Security update, and that it applies only to websites already running WordPress 4.9 and higher. While this is atypical of a release, it is important to include these new features because they provide an essential toolkit for handling GDPR compliance. We have weighed the risk in introducing these new features and since they are not manipulating or impacting existing WordPress features, we feel that this release is not only safe but also important in enabling you to make your site GDPR compliant.

As with our normal practice for Maintenance releases, this update cannot be deferred. We will be forcing this update on Monday (May 21). For more information on this update please visit: https://wpengine.com/blog/wordpress-4-9-6-what-you-need-to-know/

If you have any questions about this WordPress update please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Although this WordPress update gives you the tools to manage your GDPR requirements, we are not attorneys so we cannot advise you on the legal requirements for your business. Other web platforms are also affected by these laws. We recommend that you contact your business attorney to advise you on the appropriate changes that you need to make to your website regarding data acquisition and retention and policies that you have in place.

About: De Ivett

With over 25 years in advertising, graphic design, interactive media, software development and programming, De brings her creative and technical talents to lead the 5D Spectrum team. A well-respected voice in the industry, she has served as a technology and branding panelist for several industry conferences including Digital Hollywood.

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