Introducing a simpler, easier way to host GDPR-compliant events

These days, data privacy and data protection are an important concern worldwide. People are more aware and cautious with the information they share with organizations, especially over the internet. This, in turn, has led to stricter data protection laws, one of the most famous being the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force on May 25, 2018. It changed the way businesses handled data by giving individuals more control over how their personal information can be used.

Today, it's compulsory for all industries, including the event industry, to comply with these rules. Events collect and process a considerable amount of personal information from attendees, speakers, and other participants during registration, through surveys, and more. At Backstage, we want to make the job of handling data privacy concerns from event participants a little easier for you. In this first phase, we've focused on two of the main rights that GDPR gives individuals – the right to access and the right to erasure.

Now event participants can request a copy of their data or ask you to delete their data right from the event microsite. And you can respond to their requests in just a click or two. No more going back and forth through emails or worrying if you've missed part of the data. Not only that, you can also get their consent to send promotional emails related to your events. All of this is handled on a portal level, so when you give them a copy of the data or delete it, it will be carried out across all your events.

Handling data privacy in Backstage

You can set your data privacy preferences in the Settings tab of the Data Privacy tab. Use the toggle to the right of any option to enable or disable it in your event microsites. It's not compulsory that you enable everything, however, we recommend that you do so. It'll not only make the job of handling these requests easy for you but also show people that you genuinely care about their data.

Let's take a look at how these three options work.

Right to access information

This option allows event participants to request access to their data from the microsite. Their request will appear in the Requests tab of the Data Privacy tab. You can approve their request and send a downloadable file with all their personal information to their registered email address. If for some reason you can't satisfy their request, you can send them an email with your reason for denying it.

Right to delete information

This option allows event participants to request their data to be completely erased from your organization. For data deletion requests, the data will be first anonymized for 30 days, starting from the date you approve it. After this period, all data will be deleted completely from Backstage. Also, if you don't answer the request within 30 days, it will be automatically approved for deletion. Like with the data access request, you can deny this request too. The reason you give will be sent to their registered email address.

Get consent

You'll be sending quite a few emails in the days preceding and following your event. They may be promotional emails, reminders, or news regarding your event. In these cases, it's always better to get permission from participants and prospects. When you enable this option, they will be able to turn off all non-transaction-related emails from your organization.

Event participants and prospects can access these options in the Profile Settings tab of event microsites. One more thing—the requests apply only to the data collected or processed in Backstage. So if you've got their data offline or in other tools, it has to be handled separately. Once you approve their requests in Backstage, please ensure that you also take care of their data that you've stored in other places.

Give these options a try and handle data privacy at your events in a more efficient way. Let us know what you think in the comments below. Do subscribe to our forum to be updated with the latest Backstage news. If you have any feedback or questions, please write to us at support@zohobackstage.com.

Happy organizing!

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