How GDPR Impacts eCommerce

Though the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect May 25, businesses continue to lack the necessary preparation for the new rules. The manufacturing sector is especially unequipped for the legislation, with only a small percentage even aware of the regulation. One reason that the GDPR has gone unnoticed by many organizations is that they think the mandate doesn’t apply to them. Yes, the GDPR is being enacted by the European Union to protect the data of EU citizens, but the GDPR’s impact spans the globe. Generally speaking, if your company handles the personal data of an EU citizen, get ready for the GDPR.

These heightened security standards mean that businesses have to tighten their customer data protection to ensure compliance. In a previous post, we described how Salesforce CRM is preparing users for the GDPR, but those with an online store are likely to handle EU data in their eCommerce software. Magento eCommerce is taking steps to prepare their clients for the GDPR. Read on to learn a few tips for ensuring your eCommerce software complies with the GDPR.

Review Data Handling Procedures

To know where you stand in GDPR compliance, perform a data audit to document what personal data the company holds, where it is held, third parties who have access, security procedures and who this data is shared with. As you check your procedures, determine whether or not they cover GDPR mandates. Do individuals have rights to erasure and access? How do you manage consent? Do you have methods in place to secure data and respond swiftly to data breaches? Additionally, for Magento users, it’s essential to assess Magento Marketplace extensions. Since they are developed by third parties, they may not store personal data inside the core eCommerce platform and have standards up to par with the GDPR.

Update Procedures

Now that you’ve reviewed procedures, the natural next step is to update any practices that don’t meet GDPR mandates. These are some of the crucial steps to take to implement procedures to ensure GDPR compliance:

• Provide information to customers: When a payment is made on your eCommerce site, a clear statement about where customer data is going and who will store and process this data should be provided.
• Make personal data downloadable: Under the GDPR, individuals have the right to access their personal data. Ensure you can enable customers to download data quickly and easily upon request. 
• Task someone with compliance: To ensure measures for GDPR compliance are being taken, assign someone the role of maintaining data protection standards. Depending on what type of organization you are and the data being processed, the GDPR may even require you to designate a Data Protection Officer (DPO). Make sure you know whether or not you need this position and that this role is fulfilling the required duties.
• Test data breach response: Establish procedures for reporting significant data breaches within the required 72 hours to the required supervisory authority and relevant parties. In addition, perform mock breaches to check that you are ready in the event of a breach.

Wrap Up

The GDPR is not to be ignored. Failure to comply could result in major fines and distrust from customers. Since eCommerce systems process sensitive personal data, it’s critical that businesses put in place measures to protect data and comply with regulations. Magento is taking the GDPR seriously, assessing their products to help their users manage data stored in their eCommerce platform. The robust system can also handle substantial amounts of data to meet the extensive reporting requirements of the GDPR.

For even greater data protection and compliance, an integration between Magento eCommerce and Epicor ERP will seamlessly connect your software instances to provide 360-degree visibility across your enterprise. This visibility is crucial, as it enables businesses to efficiently detect problems with their data security. Unity, Datix’s premier integration solution, connects Epicor with a variety of systems to optimize visibility and security to support compliance.

Contact Datix today to learn how our enterprise software solutions can protect your enterprise!

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