A customer requests all the information you hold on them (GDPR – Right to access)

“The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning him or her are being processed, and, where that is the case, access to the personal data and the following information…”

-Article 15, (1) General Data Protection Regulation-

On the 25th May 2018 GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) comes into effect, it is a wide ranging overhaul of current data protection regulation that will affect all businesses, one of the significant changes that will take place is the right of access to the data held by organisations on data subjects.

The time limit from the request being made by the data subject to the information being obtained by them is a month, for some businesses this could be difficult if they have many customer information requests or a very complex data management system, say multiple spreadsheets without an efficient reference system to gather the required information in a timely manner incurring a cost to the business. Unfortunately, under GDPR guidelines you are not able to charge a fee for dealing with an information request so streamlining this process to be as efficient as possible is in your interest.

With RealtimeCRM we want to make complying with the right to access component of the GDPR as simple as pushing a button, in fact that’s what we’ve done. We’ve introduced the GDPR button on all Contact records, by clicking this button you can download a text file with all the information you hold on that Contact, this allows you to quickly and painlessly send this information to the customer requesting to see what information you currently hold on them, check its accuracy and whether they consent to you continuing to hold this information. Your data management system shouldn’t be a hindrance to compliance but an aid to it.

Meeting a Customer data request using RealtimeCRM

• Click on the Contacts panel on the left hand sidebar
• Now click on the Contact record of the Customer who is making the information request
• Once inside the relevant record, on the right of the Contact heading of the Contact box you should see the  GDPR button, click on it
• A warning box will open asking you to confirm the action
• If you want to download the text file with all of the Contact’s information then simply click OK
• Your text file will now be downloaded onto the device you are using to access RealtimeCRM, the filename will take the form “GDPR Data – Contact Name”, you can now send this file to the Contact and await their response to take further action if necessary