General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is playing a vital role in balancing the data privacy of European Union’s (EU) individuals since May 25th, 2018. European Union is a union formed after World War II by 27 state members in Europe to stabilize the economy.
The business or organization processing personal information needs to be established by complying with the legal requirements of GDPR. It ensures the protection of the personal information of users. Personal information is like the name, IP address, email address, phone number, or any data that can verify the users’ cultural, social, physical, mental, or business identity of an individual.
Note that GDPR is specifically created for EU residents to protect their data. Therefore, an organization within or outside the European Union that collects personal information from the citizens of the EU must comply with the regulation.
GDPR-Compliant WordPress Themes
Blaze Themes do not collect any personal data of users and you can comfortably use our themes without any worry of violating GDPR.
While Blaze Themes are GDPR compliant, that won’t necessarily mean that your website is compliant as well. If your website handles personal data of EU users, you have to comply with GDPR.
Here are a few things that you can do to make your website GDPR compliant:
How to Make Your Website GDPR Compliant
Clear and easily accessible privacy policy terms
It must clearly mention how the user’s personal data are being collected, stored, or processed. The privacy policy terms of your themes must be transparent to the viewers.
You can use tools like Cookiebot, Termly, WebsitePolicies, etc. to generate GDPR compliant privacy policy terms.
Asking for consent to collect the sensitive information of the user
The most important part is to take their consent before collecting any personal information. It allows users to give or withdraw consent for data collection.
You can use plugins like CookieYes, Complianz, GDPR Cookie Compliance, etc. to manage this part on your website.
Providing access to the user to control their data
Your website must provide the user with the ability to examine, modify, anonymize, or remove their data. It is the user’s right to see their personal data and have a right to request it to be changed and deleted.
Data security
You must ensure the security of your users from unauthorized access and loss of valuable data. Similarly, it is required to inform the user about the data breaches without any delay and try to take appropriate measures to secure the system and data.
Email marketing
You should use double opt-in subscription process to get consent from users for email marketing. You should also provide them the option to revoke consent from sending them emails.
Email Marketing Tools provide this feature in their service, which covers your legal requirements.
Final Words
You are in solid hands with Blaze Themes in regards to GDPR compliance. However, our themes still act as a frontend to interact with users with contact forms, newsletter subscriptions, or cookies and get their data to store in the server. But, there are different tools and services that help you be GDPR compliant in WordPress and avoid getting in hot water over GDPR violation.
