In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation came into force. But even today we still see that Magento 2 GDPR compliance is still a challenge. In this article, we'll discuss Magento 2 GDPR specifics and provide GDPR best practices.
What is GDPR?
The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law concerning data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. According to GDPR, a Magento site owner, as well as any EU-level company, can only process personal data under certain conditions where the processing data should be:
- Transparent for site users.
- Dedicated to a legitimate purpose.
- Limited in time, required for the purpose fulfillment.
The purpose of GDPR as one of the key e-commerce regulations is to ensure that a customer understands what he or she is consenting to. The information for consent should be freely given in the clear language in your Privacy Policy and requires checking a box or signing a form. If you are to process the personal data of a child based on consent, you need the parents’ permit for that.
GDPR Best Practices
Within the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, every business is obliged to:
- Determine their role (data controller; data processor)
- Provide site users with transparent information about the personal data collection
- Give the personal data being processed on the user’s request
- Delete the personal data from the site database on the user’s request or when it’s no longer required for the processing purpose
- Respect the user’s right to correct and object to incorrect personal data.
Just like it is with the EU Omnibus Directive, the GDPR impacts any online business, even if it is not located in one of the European countries. Therefore, if your company conducts business in the US but offers goods and services to EU citizens, it must comply with the new requirements as well. Even when data processing is carried out by a third party, transparency is crucial.
This means, that you are obligated to obtain clear consent from your EU customers for the collection and processing of their personal information. Additionally, individuals have the right to have their data deleted or anonymized upon request. For more information on GDPR, please refer to the European Commission’s Website
How to Comply with The GDPR Policies in Magento 2
Making your Magento GDPR compliant and keeping records are the top-priority tasks for not getting fined. Here’s how you can start the process of ensuring GDPR compliance in your store.
1. Ensure Proper Data Mapping
Begin by identifying and mapping the flow of personal data within your Magento 2 environment. This involves understanding where and how customer data is collected, processed, and stored. Create a detailed inventory of all personal data categories and their respective purposes.
2. Implement Consent Management
Amasty provides Cookie Consent for effective consent management. Ensure that your website incorporates unambiguous consent mechanisms during data collection. Allow users to opt in or out of data processing activities and maintain detailed records of their choices.
3. Minimize Collected Data
Adopt a principle of data minimization, collecting only the necessary information for the specified purpose. Customize data collection forms, requesting and storing only essential customer details.
4. Ensure Transparency of Consent Requests
Magento 2 facilitates compliance with GDPR by supporting user rights, such as the right to access, rectify, and delete personal data. Revise your Privacy Policy, ensure that your website includes user-friendly cookie consent requests for customers to exercise these rights, and establish internal processes to respond promptly to such requests.
5. Secure User Data
Implement robust security measures to safeguard personal data stored in Magento 2. Utilize encryption, secure transmission protocols, and regularly update security patches. Conduct regular security audits to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
6. Create a Data Breach Response Plan
Prepare a comprehensive data breach response plan to address any security incidents promptly. Magento 2 offers features to detect and mitigate security breaches. Familiarize your team with the plan, and regularly test its effectiveness to ensure a swift and coordinated response.
7. Manage and Monitor Your Vendors
Evaluate and monitor the GDPR compliance of third-party extensions and services integrated with your Magento 2 platform. Review contracts with vendors to ensure they adhere to data protection standards and have mechanisms in place to address potential compliance issues.
Magento 2 GDPR Compliance Strategy at Amasty
Amasty always fully meets the requirements of personal data protection. We commit to fully comply with new legislative requirements and therefore, are making all the changes requested by the law. To date, we’ve:
- Revised our Privacy Policy to lead the dialogue on specific policies dealing with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
- Run an email campaign in which we informed our EU users about the need for a repeat subscription.
- Added ‘consent checkboxes’ and ‘remove/anonymize settings’ to all our extensions related to customers’ data collection.
- Implemented Google Consent Mode v2 for Cookie Consent.
What's more, we’ve also ensured Magento GDPR compliance in all our extensions that store user data. Here are only a few examples to demonstrate the changes:
For this useful knowledge base extension, we’ve added the consent checkbox. When it is flagged, a user can ask a question using their name and email. When not, a store visitor won’t be able to submit a question. Near the checkbox, you can provide the consent text and a link to the privacy policy documentation:
The Abandoned Cart Email module now contains the GeoIP database. This helps to automatically exclude the European Union’s customer emails from further processing.
Our popular blogging solution for the Magento platform is now equipped with a special option. It allows you to enable or disable the name and email display for comments to posts or use the privacy policy compliance checkbox to publish a comment:
Magento GDPR Compliance Checklist
To wrap this article up, here’s a concise checklist of how to achieve GDPR compliance in your store:
- Only collect and process data that is necessary for the intended purpose.
- Obtain unambiguous consent for processing personal data.
- Allow individuals to withdraw consent easily.
- Establish processes to respond to data subject requests within the required timeframe.
- Implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure data security.
- Develop and implement a data breach response plan.
- Conduct regular audits to assess Magento GDPR compliance, and update policies or procedures based on audit findings.
- Ensure that your third-party Magento vendors processing personal data comply with GDPR.
