This post is because of a forthcoming change in UK legislation, which is making me consider the future of this blog. GDPR – General Data Protection Register, to give its full title affects any company or individual who holds personal data. It comes in force in the UK on 25th May 2018
Initially I thought it only affected big companies, but it turns out it affects small organisations like clubs and churches. Any individual or organisation that holds or processes data. It is important, carries with it big fines, and for any data processor, big or small, it is a pretty major headache.
However, for those who want access to their data, or have better control over how their data is used, then it will be good. The cynic in me says that the big bad guys will be able to afford lawyers who will be able to work a way round it, it’s the little guys who will take a disproportionate impact
If you are a UK blogger, you might be interested in reading this post from Nompalony It gives an excellent breakdown of what is required. She also directs you to this site for wordpress info
Update 19th May 2018 – I have also just found this quite helpful post.
This post is one of my highest read articles, which tells me far too much about how worried we all are about GDPR!) Also WordPress yesterday had a useful update, that helped me through writing the privacy policy.
Disclaimer – I am not a lawyer, and this post is only my own interpretation. Please visit the official GDPR site, do your own research and consult a lawyer depending on your own personal situation.
Impact
So as a very small blogger – how does it affect me?
- I need to review whether I want to keep my subscriber list. I don’t market to them in any way, but I email them once a month to give them updates from my blog. If I do want to keep the subscribers, I need to email them all and get them to positively agree to allow me to keep emailing them. If I don’t get positive confirmation, then I need to delete them
- Comments – When people leave comments on my blog, using a standard wordpress feature, the person leaves their name, email address, website if they wish, and their IP address is also captured. Those are stored on the blog website. So I need to either get a widget that will effectively make this data anonymous, switch off comments, or put a disclaimer in to explain what will happen when someone leaves a comment
- Data Protection Policy – I need to formulate a statement on what data is saved, how it is kept, and what I do with it
- If I decide to keep any personal data connected with this blog, I need to register with the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) as a Data processor (Annual fee £30 and rising). You also need to register your business address (in my case – my home…). I blog anonymously, and I don’t wish to publish my home address.
- I believe it affects Google Analytics. I don’t know enough about how GA works, let alone what it keeps on personal data. Do I care how it affects the various metrics that measure how popular your blog is? Probably not.
Outcome
So what am I going to do?
- I don’t use my subscriber list as a marketing tool. Many bloggers do. For those who wish to sell ‘products’, be it online courses etc, a subscriber list is extremely valuable. But for me, for the overhead it will bring far exceeds the benefits I get, so I will be writing to my regular subscribers, and tell them I am closing my subscriber list and deleting the information.
- I want to keep my comment information, so I will see whether there is a way I can just keep a name and a website. Many of my comments are from fellow bloggers, and getting a ‘click’ off a comment posted elsewhere drives readers to your site. In my opinion, I don’t think a website counts as personal information.
- I will produce a Data Policy and publish it
- I am hoping WordPress and some clever developers are going to come up with a way to ensure no personal data is stored ‘behind the scenes’.
Finally
If that doesn’t work, I will close down my site on or before 25th May. I’ll miss it, but the overhead is more than I want in my life. This blog is a hobby, a recreational activity. Maybe if I had gone for the thousands of readers and made it a business then it would be different.
It’s been fun, I’ve made lots of online friends, and read such a lot of interesting articles, but I can still keep reading anonymously, just not as Erith@Cracking Retirement….
If you would like to Pin this and please do, just click on the image below
I love reading your blogs, and have got a lot of encouragement from them. If you need permission to keep people’s adresss you certainly have mine. Is does sound like it could turn into a logistical nightmare though!
Somebody will create a method that meets requirements, hopefully before May. Good luck
Thank you Richard for your lovely feedback.
I certainly hope someone will come up with something simple to allow UK small bloggers to carry on easily. I understand the need for the new law, and am myself very fed up with the amount of rubbish that turns up in my mailbox on a daily basis. It is one of the reasons why, I only did a monthly update.
I am going to carry on in the short term, and see what happens…
Erith
Hi Erith,
Thanks for flagging this up – I hadn’t even thought about it to be honest but very sad that it is going to be such an impact. Sorry to hear you will potentially be shutting down, but I wish you all the best for the future…
FiL
Thanks FiL
My awareness about the impact of GDPR, both from a blog, but also from a personal club point-of-view, has increased a lot in the last few weeks, and maybe I am over-reacting. However by removing my subscription list, and trying to make comments more anonymous, together with a clear data policy, I hopefully will have minimised the impact. It was a shame because I had a really high ‘open’ rate among my subscribers (>70%), which meant that my blog was obviously interesting to the people who subscribed.
I just didn’t want all the bureaucracy that came with the registration, so I chose to go with the simple version, particularly as I wasn’t monetizing my blog.
It is definitely worth a bit of research from your personal/blog point of view. I think we are a long way from being checked on, but you never know!
As for the future of the blog, we’ll see what the next few months bring!
Erith
The onset of GDPR is doing my head in at work but I hadn’t thought about how it would affect me as a blogger, so thanks for flagging this and posting the links so I can do some further reading.
I’m sure there will be more info to help out bloggers like us who aren’t selling anything and just writing about personal stuff, so hopefully there won’t be a need for you to close this blog down.
Hi weenie
Like you, I hope there will be a light touch for ‘social’ media – I mean in the real sense of the word, where we are just communicating with people who like the stuff we write, as opposed to making a business from their connections.
Meanwhile I am talking to a couple of people about ‘removing IP addresses / emails on comments’. The vast majority of things like Google Analytics are anonymous anyway, so I am hoping the ICO will have bigger fish to fry than me!
Happy blogging
Erith
Thanks for this post, it’s really helpful, I also hope there is some support for small businesses and individual bloggers
I will be happy for you to have my details too
Many thanks Angela,
I have decided to move away from a subscriber list (at least just now), but thank you for your offer to keep your details.
Like any other legislation, the ‘little people at the edges’ are caught far more than the ‘big guys’. Once I work out how to anonymise comments, I will be happy to continue, at least in teh short term.
I hope you keep reading with out the monthly reminder
Erith
testing a new comment box
My hope is that regulators will not follow the letter of the law, but rather its spirit. It’s clear that blogs like this are not abusing users’ data. It would be ridiculous if they put pressure on us. Fingers crossed!
I absolutely agree. for the bloggers, who don’t cross-sell, it really is overkill.
However, I am removing my subscription list, I have changed my comments box so that email address is no longer mandatory (though it still shows with an *). I have now managed to make the IP addresses saved by WordPress anonymous. After that I only have Google Analytics to sort out… And write a Data Policy. That should surely be enough!
Erith