Almost every day I come across member’s promotions, competitions and websites collecting personal information from consumers which are in breach of the Privacy Act.
Many of us are asking people to give us their contact details without making it clear that the information they give us will be stored or telling them how it will be used.
Compared to many countries in the ‘western world’ we are fortunate to have very workable privacy laws, so it’s in our own interests to demonstrate good privacy practices. And It’s very obvious that being open and transparent when we are building our customer database builds consumer trust and enhances our brand.
You don’t need to read the whole Privacy Act to comply. There are just 13 Principles to follow https://www.privacy.org.nz/privacy-principles/ But as a marketer you can probably get by if you just remember one of them – Principle 3.
Principle 3 is blindingly simple, it just requires you to tell people that you are collecting their personal information and how you will use it.
Specifically you must tell people:
You must tell them this at the time you collect their information, and you can do this by linking them directly to the privacy Policy on your website.
So, just do yourself a favour and check your ‘contact us’ page to see if there’s a link to your privacy policy. And when you next run a promotion or competition which requires entrant’s details, make sure you give them access to a full set of T’s and C’s which include your privacy policy.
And now for a very amateur segue to an interesting article from the USA. I spotted this headline about a retailer who failed to check on his website privacy settings.
‘Broken cookie mechanism and excessive ID requirements land retailer a $345k CCPA fine’
US Fashion retailer Todd Snyder, Inc. has agreed to pay a $345,178 fine and overhaul its privacy practices to settle allegations by the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) that it violated the CCPA.
For 40 days, Todd Snyder’s website had a broken “cookie preferences center” that prevented users from opting out of the sale or sharing of their personal information. when consumers clicked the "Cookie Preferences Center" link, the consent banner would "instantaneously disappear," making it impossible to submit opt-out requests.
We don’t face huge penalties like this in NZ, but we could if we’re not vigilant in following our privacy rules.