Mastering Sitecore's Five Methods for GDPR Compliance[2023]

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It's crucial to understand the five techniques taught by Sitecore if you want to adhere to the rigorous GDPR data protection law. Huge fines for GDPR violations have grown more frequent, which is alarming the business community. Businesses must adapt to the GDPR's strict protection requirements because it has significantly altered the state of digital security today. The five principles from Sitecore's function settings for dealing with GDPR have been distilled by QEdge Digital Solutions, a company with more than ten years of experience in Sitecore development and operation.

Organizations must explicitly obtain the consent of the person to organize the storage of personal information

 Storing someone's personal details requires explicit consent from that person. For example, pre-filling checkboxes at the end of website forms to automatically opt-in customers is no longer acceptable. Website visitors will now have to check the box themselves. There are further rules covering retrieval of consent if you communicate with minors.

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Organizations must inform individuals why and where their data is stored

Organizations must be able to tell individuals why and where their data is stored. In Sitecore, personally identifiable information (PII) is stored in xDB, user membership databases, and indexing providers (Solr, Lucene, or Azure). When customers exercise "access rights," Sitecore xConnect with a dedicated API will get all the details of a customer profile in a readable format. So when you want to store personal information data, make sure your privacy policy, cookie policy, and terms and conditions reflect that information where required.

Ensure that your users have the right to be forgotten 

Individuals have the right to request all data held about them by companies. In addition, they will also have a "right to be forgotten." In other words, they can require companies to delete all their personal information and prohibit companies from sharing their information with third parties. Sitecore can render contacts completely anonymous, yet maintain the referential integrity of the database. Therefore, it provides an alternative to deleting contacts from the database. It removes any personal identifiers such as values or attributes pointing to contacts. This enables the realization of the right to be forgotten (referring to the right of data subjects to ask the data controller to delete personal information about them).

Ensure that every system in use is compliant

Not every software system used is built in-house, but it is your responsibility to ensure that the systems used are compliant. So, if you're using Google, Salesforce, Mailchimp, or any other similar system with the Sitecore platform, please review their policies. In this regard, Sitecore has also made more flexible and convenient function settings. If you use Sitecore, all data transmitted to the third-party system must flow through Sitecore's Connect module, which means that there is only one point of failure that needs attention.

Ensure that your users’ marketing subscriptions are selective

Email marketing is still one of the digital marketing methods that enterprises will choose today. Under the rules of GDPR, the CMS platform of enterprises should ensure that your users can freely choose whether to subscribe to receive marketing information as much as possible. With Sitecore, this is possible with the “Do Not Market” method where only transactional/service emails are sent, but no marketing-related emails are sent. This way, it becomes very easy and simple for users to unsubscribe from unwanted emails.

This is the Sitecore-based functional module design for this issue from QEdge Digital Solutions. It enumerates the key concerns CMS platforms must take into account when responding to the GDPR review. It's important to check if a CMS platform has a design layout for these elements while making your decision. Any firm that gathers and uses user data from EU member states must adhere to GDPR regulations.

Businesses today need to deploy data insights online on a big scale, promote digital marketing engagement, and customize user attraction and retention due to the severe competition in the digital marketplace. The best option is a CMS platform that can maintain a balance between the two, such as a CMS digital experience platform like Sitecore when faced with the seeming contradiction between data insight and user privacy protection.

"Despite GDPR's rigorous requirements, it is widely accepted since as our data insight skills grow, we will also need border controls. When faced with in-depth data insight and tight legal compliance, it is wiser and more long-term for the majority of organizations to select a CMS platform like Sitecore, which is both sensible and long-term.”

qedge technologies is committed to provide sitecore digital solutions

Additionally, QEdge Digital Solutions created a future projection for this circumstance at the same time. assuming that "in the future, organizations will need to offer a tailored experience. Whoever starts it sooner and goes deeper will have a greater chance of assisting the company's growth. From this perspective, Sitecore CMS services are still viable choices based on their strengths and experience. Sitecore has been picked by numerous international companies, including American Express, Dow Chemical, L'Oreal, Puma, and domestic significant businesses like Mengniu, ZTE, and Huawei. This serves as a wonderful reminder and example. -QEdge Digital Solutions.

If you're interested in learning more about how QEdge can help you with your Sitecore implementation, let's schedule a time to talk.

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