What is Consumer Data Privacy?

5 minute read. Learn what consumer data privacy means and how it impacts your business.

For individuals, privacy is the right to be left alone, free from interference or intrusion. It’s a fundamental right that is essential to autonomy and dignity, providing a foundation for other human rights. Data privacy is the right to exercise some control over how your personal or private information is collected, managed, and used. Governments create data protection laws to protect individual freedom.

Protecting Individuals From Unwarranted Interference

Privacy enables us to protect ourselves from unwarranted interference in our lives, which allows us to define who we are and how we interact with society.The important role the Web plays in commerce and social interaction increases the importance of data privacy.

To provide their services, websites, applications, and social media platforms frequently collect and store personal data about users. Without regulation, some applications and platforms have exceeded users' expectations about data collection and sharing, reducing individual privacy. Other apps and platforms may inadequately protect the data they collect, which can compromise user privacy in a data breach.

Protecting Your Business

Businesses’ responsibility to protect individual’s data privacy is paramount. Regulations and best practices exist to ensure that companies remain diligent about their data privacy practices. These help to ensure that businesses:

• Avoid costly fines – By complying with the law, businesses can avoid a variety of expensive penalties and possible criminal charges.
• Protect consumers – By protecting personal data, businesses can help consumers avoid  possible fraud, harassment, and surveillance.
• Protect brand value and build trust – By responsibly handling customers’ sensitive data, businesses can protect their brands from reputational damage and position themselves as ethical stewards of consumer information.

Poorly protected personal data can be misused in a number of ways, including:

• Criminal organizations can defraud or harass users by using their personal data.
• Businesses may sell personal data to third-parties for targeted advertising without user consent.
• By tracking and monitoring individuals, repressive governments can restrict freedom of speech and expression.

For individuals, these outcomes are harmful. For businesses, these outcomes can result in reputational damage, fines, sanctions, and other legal consequences. To safeguard individual privacy, businesses must create standards and procedures for sourcing, using, and sharing vital company data and consumers’ personal data. Their first step should be to create a data privacy policy.

Creating a Consumer Privacy Policy

Your privacy policy is one of the most important documents on your website because it specifies your company's position on and procedures for managing the information you collect from visitors. While a privacy policy is a legal document, it should be accurate and easy to understand. Privacy policies commonly include the following sections:

1. Introduction that informs visitors about your organization and any functions of your website. If your website has special conditions for collecting information from children, you should state them clearly in this section.
2. Information collected that details which information you are collecting.
3. Collection method which explains how you collect information. Is it all automated? Do the forms visitors fill in collect other information, such as the original referrer? All of these questions will help you build a detailed description of how you collect information.
4. Information storage which shares how you store and protect the information you collect.
5. Contact information so that users can contact you with any questions they have.

Complying with Data Privacy Laws

To cost-effectively ensure they are complying with privacy regulations, business owners and leaders need to track consumer requests to opt-out, review, access, delete, and obtain their data. Without an accurate system for tracking the status of each request, business owners risk costly penalties and reputational damage.

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To strengthen and enhance customer loyalty, PrivacyCare offers a system that features:

1. Customizable data-subject-request (DSR) forms that consumers can use to initiate their data request.
2. Consumer authentication.
3. A flexible record-keeping system that can support any DSR process, helping businesses comply with multi-state data privacy laws.
4. A database of the DSRs and their status.
5. A cost-effective solution that avoids unnecessary upgrades involving data analytics, data management, and data security functions.
6. A SaaS platform that eliminates the need for businesses to purchase and manage hardware or software.
7. Up-to-date with latest changes to data privacy laws across the U.S.

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With PrivacyCare you can avoid costly fines, protect your customers personal data and protect your brand value by building customers trust. Jumpstart your consumer data privacy program and get started for free with PrivacyCare today.

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