Everything to know about Privacy Policy Compliance
A Privacy Policy serves as a document outlining the details of personal information collected on your website, its usage, and the parties with whom it may be shared, among other disclosures.
If your website gathers personal details like names and emails, it's crucial to have a Privacy Policy. Typically, such information is obtained through contact forms or email newsletter sign-up forms.
In recent years, various states and countries have enacted privacy laws safeguarding their citizens' personal information. Anticipate more of these laws emerging in the future. Non-compliance can lead to privacy fines ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 per violation, potentially per website visitor.
These privacy laws extend beyond a business's location and size, focusing solely on protecting their citizens. We strongly advise all our clients not only to adopt a Privacy Policy but also to develop a strategy for its ongoing maintenance and updates.
Why is a Privacy Policy important?
A comprehensive Privacy Policy is required to comply with privacy laws. Currently, there are multiple privacy laws in the United States and across the world that require most websites that collect personal information to have a Privacy Policy:
- European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR);
- United Kingdom's Data Protection Act 2018 (UK DPA 2018);
- Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA);
- Australia Privacy Act of 1988;
- The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA);
- The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA);
- Delaware Online Privacy Protection Act (DOPPA);
- Nevada's Revised Statutes Chapter 603A;
- Colorado Privacy Act (goes into effect in 2023); and
- Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (goes into effect in 2023)
These laws were created to protect the consumers of those states and countries, not the businesses. This means that these laws can apply to businesses outside of those states and countries and may apply to you if you do business there, collect the personal information of residents of those states or countries, or offer goods or services there.
Fines for violations of privacy laws start at $2,500 per violation (per website visitor).
Why you need to keep your Privacy Policy up to date?
Penalties for non-compliance
The collection of personally identifiable information is regulated under multiple privacy laws. For example, in the US, there are four state privacy laws that can apply to businesses, regardless of their location, and fines for non-compliance start at $2,500 per “infringement” (per website visitor). Each of these privacy laws has specific disclosure requirements that have to be added to your Privacy Policy to be compliant.
On top of that, over two dozen privacy bills have been proposed on a state-level, each with their own unique disclosure requirements and penalties for not complying. Some of these bills will enable citizens to sue businesses (of any size or location) for collecting their personally identifiable information without an up to date and compliant Privacy Policy. Due to the ever-changing nature of privacy laws, we recommend that you not only have a comprehensive Privacy Policy in place but that you also develop a strategy to keep your policies up to date when these laws are amended or when new laws are implemented.
Google requires your website to have a Privacy Policy
Outside of the legal requirements, Privacy Policies are required to use popular third-party tools. For example, a website utilizing Google Analytics is required by Google to have a Privacy Policy. You can find this requirement within section 7 of Google’s Terms of Service: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/
If your website gets inquiries from across state lines, your business may be required to comply with multiple state privacy laws.
The solution: Termageddon
Termageddon is a Privacy Policy generator that will automatically update your website's policies whenever the laws change.
Termageddon not only helps you quickly generate a Privacy Policy for your website, but their team monitors privacy laws and can automatically update your policies when the laws change. They are the only Privacy Policy generator listed as a trusted vendor by the IAPP.org, an organization consisting of 60,000 privacy attorneys and professionals. We even use Termageddon on our own website.
Essential
This is an add-on to your Essential Hosting Plan that provides you with a cost savings of $3 per month off the retail price of $12 per month for Termageddon.
One-time $50 set up fee includes Zoom meeting to walk through the questions that must be answered to create the policies.
What's Included
ProPopular
This is an add-on to your Pro Hosting Plan that provides you with a cost savings of $4.50 per month off the retail price of $12 per month for Termageddon.
Set up fee is waived for a Zoom meeting to walk through the questions that must be answered to create the policies.
What's Included
Premier
This is an add-on to your Premier Hosting Plan that provides you with a cost savings of $12 per month off the retail price of $12 per month for Termageddon.
Set up fee is waived for a Zoom meeting to walk through the questions that must be answered to create the policies.
What's Included
Set up your policies in 15 minutes or less. Protect your business today!
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