Since May 25th, 2018, regulation no 2016/679, a general regulation on the protection of personal data (GDPR), has come into effect.
A regulation adopted by the European Parliament, it updates the policies and laws about the protection of personal data. Created to protect natural persons living within the 28 member states of the European Union, numerical platforms such as Google and Facebook must adapt their own policies in order to respect it. Following, are concrete ways that this new regulation may have an impact on your daily lives:

1- Data Retention

Conserving data is a crucial element in every aspect of digital marketing. The information collected allows us to compare, measure and optimize. This is known as cybermetrics or data analysis. Once the GDPR goes into effect, Google Analytics will modify their data retention period to 26 months by default. Which means that, if you do not modify this parameter before May 25th, 2018, you will lose all data that is older than 26 months. We have prepared the following procedure to guide you in adjusting this parameter:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics

2. Click on Administration, then go to the property that you want to edit.

3. In the PROPERTY column, click Tracking Info > Data Retention.

4. User-data retention: select « Do not automatically expire »

5. Reset on new activity: deactivate this option.

2- Tacit Consent

Consent must be given voluntarily and may not be coerced or accepted by default by the user. It must also be simple to withdraw if the user changes their mind. Verbal or implicit consent is not valid, it must be tacit and clear. Also, it must be possible to modify or cancel membership by email, without having to sign in to an account, having to enter an address or a username. This applies to:

– The use of cookies

– A subscription to a newsletter or a plan (free or paid)

– A cancellation

– Consult Google for more details and tools for obtaining consent.

Consult Google for more details and tools for obtaining consent.

These restrictions are only applicable to citizens living in European territory. However, with the Internet, those borders are difficult to define. We recommend that these regulations be respected outside of Europe. There are many similarities to Canada’s C-28 regulation with regards to consent. This way, you will be ready if Canada, or any other country, also decides to adopt these regulations!

Do not hesitate to contact one of our Digital Strategy Experts to ensure that you are respecting the regulations applicable to your market and your target clientele.