Established, compliant GDPR Mailing House. Essential for responsible, legal mailing.

The General Data Protection Regulation of 25th May 2018 is an EU law for the data protection and privacy of all individuals. Personal Data is at the forefront of the legislation and there is greater emphasis on the documentation that data controllers must keep. Data Controllers are defined as individuals who determine the purposes for which, and the manner in which any personal data is processed. As a Data Controller it makes good sense to work with a data-assured GDPR Mailing House.

What is Personal Data in mailing?

GDPR regulation interprets Personal Data as any information that can identify a person. A person’s name and address for example is Personal Data. In contrast a list of addresses without any individual names is not Personal Data. An example of this is envelopes that are addressed to The Resident.

Using non-addressed mail means that no individual can be readily identified at an address. Hence this type of ‘partially addressed’ mail is a legitimate way to reach households and businesses. It’s important to know that using an existing named database and simply excluding individual names is not legal. This is a direct breach of GDPR rules. The correct way to contact households is via raw data. This can be obtained from www.geolist.co.uk

GDPR mailing houses follow a secure, accountable data process. part of the process records information about the processing of personal data. Records include detail about how data is received, what data is used for, where data is held and for how long.

In real terms this means that from the time that the GDPR process is managed by robust, clearly defined, data and security policies. Right from the time that data is transferred over to Sharp Cat servers until the time that it mails out.

4 practical facilities that help GDPR mailing compliance:

1. Transfer of Personal Data via secure encryption.

2. Clearly defined data processing agreements.

3. Robust data processing policies.

4. Access to www.mailoptout.co.uk. Mail opt out enables individuals to easily opt out of specific mailings. Because opt out requests are automatically suppressed against next mailings this enables data departments extra time to remove the name from the main CRM.

For any advice about GDPR compliance in mailing, speak to a Sharp Cat Account Manager or call a member of the Tech Team today.