GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
The European Union's data protection regulation, which also covers non-EU companies that sell to people in Europe.
What is the GDPR, and do I need to comply with it if I have customers in Europe?
The GDPR is Regulation (EU) 2016/679, adopted on April 27, 2016 and in force since May 25, 2018. It protects people whenever their data is processed by the private sector and most of the public sector, and it recognizes rights like accessing your own data, requesting its deletion (the right to be forgotten), taking it to another service, and being told when a security breach happened.
Companies based outside the EU have to follow the same rules whenever they offer products or services to people inside the EU or monitor their behavior. The highest fines reach 20 million euros or 4% of worldwide annual revenue from the previous financial year, whichever is greater.
Why it matters to your business
A Colombian business selling services to customers in Germany or Spain, or tracking the behavior of European visitors, can fall under the GDPR. It's worth building compliance in from the start, asking only for the data you actually need and responding to access or deletion requests.
How we use this at Damorus
Damorus Projects's own privacy policy, written for a business working out of Bogotá and Berlin, was drafted to follow Colombia's Law 1581 of 2012 and Regulation (EU) 2016/679, along with the German federal data protection law. At Küsten Elite, a business in Germany, the privacy policy (Datenschutz) and the Impressum are linked but still without final text, the quote form already links to the consent notice, and the site remains a mockup, kept out of search indexes.
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