Every business owner around the world has to address the GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulation ) which becomes active on 25th May 2018. If your business is based in the EU or provides services to EU citizens ( even if your business is based outside of the EU ), then you have steps to take with your business to ensure every piece of customer data you hold and your processes in dealing with that data are compliant with GDPR.
Weblake is supporting its customers primarily with their websites and its respective Privacy Policy. We are creating their specific Privacy Policy via the ‘iubenda’ service which is backed by a legal team that keep the policy wording up to date automatically. In addition to creating and implementing these Privacy Policies for our customers, we are also ensuring that our customers have the correct Cookie Consent directive in place. Indirectly, the support is there for our customers to help them understand the non-website related steps that are required to ensure they are GDPR compliant. This is a minefield and specific to each business. Each businesses Privacy Policy is also specific to them and their data activities. No template is suitable now. No one-size fits all. Those days of “let’s copy that Privacy Policy and paste it into our website” are over. Generic is out! Specific and transparent is where it’s at.
The ICO website contains a wide range of extensive guides and documentation that distills this new Regulation into achievable and understandable actions that are required by every business that has to adhere to this new Regulation. To that end, I share a great 12 step guide to GDPR and links to relevant and useful resources.
It will be interesting to see how the landscape will look post 25th May 2018 and GDPR. I can only imagine the immense work and investment that has been required by corporations to adhere to this programme. Will they all do it correctly? Let’s see.
Moreover, let’s see how quickly we see claims being placed against businesses out there for non-GDPR compliance. I can imagine there are consumers out there as I write, sat in their ivory towers, poised, ready to lunge at the chance to claim what is reported to be potentially millions of pounds in compensation.
I am supporting my customers and helping them protect themselves from the acts of consumers trying to make a quick buck.
We can only hold our breath at this stage.
I had only ever worked with Windows when I moved Weblake into specialising in WordPress. This was a move that had transpired from my hitting rock bottom. The business was failing due to historical customers either going out of business or being acquired. The worst case scenario though was Weblake’s largest customer ( an agency who had become around 80% of the business revenue ( yes, yes, yes a bad place to be I knew that )) were also on the way out. They employed a ‘Digital Producer’ and I knew my days were numbered. It was the kick up the rear I needed really but it’s frightening I can tell you. But it also hurts ( a lot ) when that company that you pretty much were a permanent part of, moved mountains for and other customers projects aside for, don’t so much as give you a second of explanation or warning. Nothing, no compassion or any type of loyalty, thanks or forewarning. It taught me a huge lesson and one never to be repeated.
The first development project for me using WordPress was for a brand new customer and a customer that knew exactly what they wanted. And being in tech themselves knew a good performing website, more than the average user.
Something wasn’t working on Windows though. This was like watching paint dry, even though FastCGI was being implemented. "I wonder about Linux. Everyone in open source seems to use Linux but I know nothing about it. It might be time to learn".
So that’s what I did. Set out to self learn this new technology ( to me anyway ) and spent the next week dedicated to learning Ubuntu, command line and bash scripting. It didn’t take me long to realise I was working with something that left Windows in the dark for WordPress performance. It was one of those "…damn, I wish I had looked into this years ago". It’s never too late though eh?
I really can’t see myself working with Windows technology again. The beauty of Linux and the command line, the control, the solidity, the community and the sheer performance of the Linux OS is just wonderful.
If you are reading this and have never tried the open source Linux OS take my word for it, you will never look back. It’s a little steep in terms of learning but once you begin to understand the mechanics it’s a joy to use and administer.
Whilst my initial move into Linux was based around Ubuntu and Apache, my next move will be into the world of Nginx. My research suggests that Nginx leaves Apache standing. For web performance Nginx seems to be light years ahead of Apache, so that is where I am heading…
Watch this space…
Thank you to Thomas Kvistholt for this posts featured image
Thomas Kvistholt
We are proud to be a Whitechapel Road sponsor for this year’s WordPress conference in London. Really looking forward to the event on 8,9 & 10th of April 2016.
I will be contributing to WordPress itself on the Friday in some way and attending the full weekend conference.
The previous Buzz brand 😉
https://2016.london.wordcamp.org/
