GDPR, short for General Data Protection Regulation, is an European Union law that you have likely heard about. It's a quite hot topic nowadays ...
There are hundreds of articles and sources out there, but most of them are boring and complex content pieces containing a bunch of legal stuff.
It's pretty hard to find a comprehensive yet easy-to-digest guide on how to make a Wordpress site GDPR compliant.
So I've decided to create one. Which is free of any complex legal stuff.
Obviously, is just a practical guide and NOT a legal advice. I'm not a lawyer and NOTHING in this post should be considered legal advice!
With that having said, let's see the first question ...
What is GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).
In plain English: European Union’s GDPR law requires explicit user consent to store personal information, so users can have more personal control on their data stored on websites.
The law became effective on May 25th, 2018 and the EU has put in hefty penalties for those who are not in compliance.
More precisely, businesses that are not in compliance with GDPR’s requirement can face fines up to 4% of a company’s annual global turnover OR even €20 million (whichever is greater).
Which brings us to the next question ...
How GDPR will affect your Wordpress website?
The point: GDPR it applies to every business, large and small, around the world, not just in the European Union. If your site has visitors from European Union countries, then this law applies to you too.
Bu tyou don't have to worry ....
First of all, is extremely easy to make your site GDPR compliant.
And needless to say, there is a whole, well-defined process. It will start with a simple warning, followed by a reprimand. Then a suspension of data processing will occur, and finally, if you continue to violate the law, then the large fines will hit. And no, you won't have to pay €20 million ... That's for Zuckenberg or Larry Page ...
Reply
There are a few "guides" to GDPR Compliance doing the rounds but this one, I believe, covers all aspects of the requirements.
Thanks again and have a great Christmas.
Terry
My site, theme and WP are fully updated (not to Gut, tho) and the comment privacy checkbox does not appear.
I tried the WP GDPR Compliance plugin but it seems overly complex and demands that the user agree to storing theirdetails before it accepts their comment. At least if I've understood it correctly.
Can you recommend a plugin to do the ticky box thing?
Ian
I don't know any free comment GDPR plugin because I'm using a paid third-party commenting solution.
But you could make a search in the WP plugin repository. And if you have a site-wide GDPR consent solution (for example a popup, a footer bar, etc) on your homepage, I'sd say that you are covered.
The theme didn't override the WP GDPR Compliance. Now I come to think oif it, I'm sure some other training somewhere said we didn't need it a ticky box for some reason 😱
Argh!
Ian
There are lot of training materials and a lot of experts out there ...
I've made all my research using official sources, so I'm pretty sure that my info is correct Ian.
Thank you
Ian
