Why a good privacy policy is essential

Why it is essential for all websites to have a privacy policy!

The purpose of a privacy policy is to inform visitors to your website about why you are collecting their information. It will detail how you collect their information, why you are collecting their information, how you will use their information and if you are sharing their information with a third party.

Good Privacy policies should be short and to the point, this is an idea of what should be in one:

Some additional points that you may consider adding are:

1. How do you store the data
2. Links to other policies on your website (cookie policy, terms of service)
3. How to access or remove data

Privacy laws often change and for these reasons, it is a good idea to update your privacy policies regularly. The current laws you need to keep in front of are:

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, that applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction about children under 13 years of age, including children outside the U.S. Details can be found here http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm

California has the strictest privacy laws in the US. The primary law is the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) — now amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)

EU laws apply to all businesses and people who do business in the EU, which means if you are in the States and market your product or service to any EU nation then at a minimum the GDPR will apply to you. If you are unsure it's best to obtain legal advice.

Reason number 1 of why you need a good privacy policy is that it builds trust with your visitors, provides them clarity about how you use their data but also sets the boundaries for you as to what you can and cannot do with their information.

Why do you need a privacy policy?

Reason number 2 is all about marketing. If you do any form of paid advertising then you will need an accessible privacy policy which is normally addressed in your site's footer section, before being able to advertise your product or service on virtually all the common mainstream advertising platforms.

Action steps

1. Review your site's privacy policy, and how many of the recommended elements does your privacy policy have.
   
2. Check for elements that are unnecessary.
3. If older than 12 months update
4. Is the privacy page linked in the footer of your site? If not update

If you find your privacy policy is out of date and you are not sure what it should contain then use a service like law depot to write your privacy policy for you. They will ask you a series of questions to populate the privacy policy, and within 30 minutes you will have a current privacy policy ready to add to your site