GDPR Compliant

Why Should Your Push Notifications Be GDPR Compliant?

In 2018, the GDPR took the entire marketing world by storm when it said that you couldn’t just collect and store other people’s private information unless you have explicit consent.

This honestly shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone. But after the GDPR was introduced, it was no longer an optional “good practice.”

So, what’s GDPR anyway?

GDPR is a set of regulations that protects the privacy of your online users. It’s only relevant if you’re marketing in the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden). 

The problem is, since so many websites get traffic directly from search engines, you can’t say for certain that you’ll attract visitors only from a specific place.

So, it’s standard practice now for marketing tools to be GDPR compliant.

But what exactly does the law say? What are the basic requirements to be GDPR compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Due to the dynamic nature of websites, no single plugin can offer 100% legal compliance. Please consult a specialist internet law attorney to determine if you comply with all applicable laws for your jurisdictions and your use cases. Nothing on this website should be considered legal advice.

In simple terms, there are 3 fundamental parts of GDPR that you need to know. If you’re collecting data over the internet for marketing:

• Automatically anonymize your online audience or disable personal data tracking
• Ask for explicit consent before you collect or store any personal data
• Allow subscribers an easy way to opt out of data tracking

Thankfully, PushEngage offers GDPR compliance for push notifications by default.

How PushEngage Is GDPR Compliant By Design

Now that you understand what GDPR compliant push notifications are let’s talk a little bit about how PushEngage is GDPR compliant by design.

This means that there’s no magic switch that turns your push notifications GDPR compliant.

Instead, PushEngage is built in such a way that any notification you create is inherently GDPR ready. Let’s take a look at exactly how that happens.

#1 Push Notifications Are Based On User Consent

There are broadly two types of push notifications in the context of user consent. You can create single opt-in push notifications or double opt-in push notifications.

Single opt-ins are your everyday garden variety push notifications. Double opt-ins require users to confirm their subscription even after they opt in. Double opt-ins get fewer subscribers, but they get really engaged subscribers as only the people who want to hear from you will opt in.

In either case, push notifications ask users to opt in.

There’s no sudden blast of notifications that your subscribers never asked for. So, all push notifications are designed to inherently ask for user consent before collecting or storing any data at all. Even so, the data collected isn’t personal data, but more on that later.

#2 There’s An Explicit Notice Declaring Data Collection And Its Purposes

Every push notification declares that it’s going to store your device and browser information so that they can send you messages later on. There’s no way to claim that the subscribers didn’t know that they were opting in for push notifications.

So, not only is the data collection very transparent, it’s also very clear why you’re collecting and storing the data.

#3 It’s Easy To Opt Out Of Push Notifications

Without exception, every push notification you send out with PushEngage gives your subscribers the option to unsubscribe. It’s not even a complicated process. All anyone has to do to unsubscribe is click on the Unsubscribe button.

That’s literally it. No additional steps, nothing.

You can still design win-back campaigns for your subscribers on your website. Every time someone unsubscribes, you can show them content that asks them to stay. But the actual process of unsubscribing is straightforward.

#4 No Identifying Personal Data Is Stored

PushEngage doesn’t store any identifying personal data. The way in which push notifications work is that a unique hash is created based on the combination of the device and the browser of a subscriber.

Once a visitor subscribes to push notifications, you’ll only be able to see the number of subscribers you have. There’s no associated email or other personal information. To PsuhEngage’s software, each of your subscribers will only be a number.

That was a lot of information for anyone to process. But we hope that our transparency about the way in which PushEngage works has helped you understand what we mean by GDPR compliance for push notifications.

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