Crisis Communication In The Days Of GDPR

As with every single person in the UK knows, GDPR came into full effect back in May, meaning that brands can now be fined €20 million or four per cent of annual global turnover (whichever is greater) for non-compliance with new data protection regulations.

Even if you do comply with all the rules and tick every single box you’re supposed to, you still won’t always be able to protect yourself and your business 100 per cent completely if hackers, fraudsters and any other nefarious individuals are intent on taking you down, whether that’s by hacking into your computer network or by going through your bins to find shredded paperwork.

Part of the new GDPR regulations states that you have to report any and all data breaches to regulators (and your customers) within 72 hours of the breach taking place. What this means for you and your crisis communications department is that you will have to make sure that you plan well ahead for the inevitable breaches that, unfortunately, take place these days with increasing frequency.

Update your data breach crisis plan often

You should make sure you update your data breach crisis plans on a regular basis so that you know they’re fit for purpose and will continue to ensure compliance with these new regulations. If you haven’t already done so, you’d be wise to draft and test out new protocols, as well as statements for the media and your own social media platforms, and correspondence that you can send out to customers and clients notifying them of the situation.

And this latter point is arguably just as important putting the protocols and measures in place to prevent these breaches from happening in the first place. You’ve got to factor in reputational risk as well as others when considering GDPR, since the regulations mean that consumers now enjoy greater control over their personal information and brands have to be more responsible in how they use and store this data.

Protect your reputation

What you don’t want to do is lose customer trust and if there’s any kind of sign that you’ve misused their data, this could easily happen. And once it’s lost, it’s practically impossible to get it back again. Once customers don’t trust you, sponsors, suppliers and other businesses could soon turn their backs on you as well.

In our GDPR-centric world, you need to make sure your brand is as prepared as possible. You have to know that you’re well able to communicate effectively if something does happen, so make sure that you do have a good understanding of the more technical sides of your business.

You also need to establish the role that your comms department will play with regards to incident response. This should involve managing the impact to your reputation, as well as offering support to your call centres, social media managers and sorting out mass consumer notifications.

If you’d like any further help or advice, get in touch with a crisis communications uk specialist you can trust.