Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker

UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author

gdpr

GDPR – Meeting With The UK’s Small Business Minister To Request An Emergency Extension

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SUPER URGENT: We need your help, please! If your microbusiness is in desperate need of an extension to the #GDPR deadline to the end of this year, please email your MP, copying in Matt Hancock and Andrew Griffiths to tell them why you need it. TODAY if possible.

I just had a great meeting with Andrew, courtesy of Helen Whateley, MP, but despite the fact that I know hundreds of you have written to your MPs, they have not been passing the messages on to Andrew.
If Andrew gets a critical mass of messages this week, he will take action. Technically GDPR is Matt Hancock’s baby, but Andrew is our voice in Government.

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Even if you have already written to your MP, please do so again, letting them know how urgent this is. Ask them to call Andrew & Matt, because timing is now so tight.
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Be specific about why complying isn’t easy for you and how having the extension will help.
Their constituency emails (below) will reach them.

Once you have emailed, please tag your MP in a tweet, telling them you have emailed them to ask for a GDPR compliance deadline extension and that it’s super-urgent.

Please share this video.
Thank you!

Your MP: their constituency email address is easy to find via Google. It’s worth including your address in the email, because many won’t reply unless you can prove they are your MP.

Matt Hancock: Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports
matt.hancock.mp@parliament.uk
Twitter @MattHancock

Andrew Griffiths: Minister for Small Business
andrew.griffiths.mp@parliament.uk
Twitter: @andrewgriffiths

GDPR: Why You DON’T Need To Delete Your List On 25th May – And 3 Practical Actions You Can Take Instead

Articles

With just a few weeks left until the GDPR deadline, many microbusinesses are struggling to get their heads round the complexity of the legislation. It was brought in without simplifications, which means that kitchen table solopreneurs have to comply with the same complexity as multinationals like Amazon, who have had entire teams working on this for a year.

One of the biggest challenges is reconfirming our historical email lists. My research over the past two weeks showed that 10% is a typical reconfirmation rate – the UK’s smallest businesses are losing up to 90% of their subscribers.

But you don’t have to delete your list on 25th May. Here are three practical things you can do, instead:

Here’s the link to the ICO’s ‘Lawful Basis For Processing’ guidelines: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

Here’s the link to Heather Burns’ practical webinar on how to get your business GDPR-ready: https://www.5minute.biz/gdpr/

If you want to write to your MP / Elizabeth Denham at the ICO, asking for a light touch extension for micro businesses until 31st December, I suggest you include:

* What you ARE doing to comply already
* Where, specifically, you are struggling to comply (e.g. reconfirmation / software providers not offering tick boxes for granularity of consent)
* How this could damage your business – the unintended consequences of this legislation

Please let me know via the comments how you get on with this.

x Clare

Clare Josa

Author of Dare to Dream Bigger

GDPR: Why We Urgently Need An Extension To The Compliance Deadline

Articles

Tens of thousands of UK microbusinesses are struggling to comply with the new GDPR rules, which require us to achieve the same level of compliance as multinational businesses like Amazon and Google, when we might have only one employee.

Many have had to cancel important projects, to work on this full-time. Many are simply giving up and closing their businesses, because it is too complex – there were no simplifications for the smallest businesses.

Many are finding that the USA-based software companies they rely on to run their businesses will not allow them to be compliant in time.

And national media outlets are getting consumers excited about the ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to clear out their inboxes. So GDPR reconfirmation rates are averaging 10% – we’re losing 90% of our potential customers.

 

Here is why we need an emergency extension to the ICO’s 25th May deadline:


Here are some of the reasons why we are struggling:

  • If you’re not a lawyer, these rules are hugely complex. Even when we have studied them in detail, there is so much conflicting information that it’s hard to know what is fact vs fiction. There have been no simplifications for us and we are required to comply to the same level of complexity as multinationals who have had full teams working on this for a year.
  • Unless you have a very simple business, then making all of the required changes can take many weeks, editing thousands of website pages. This becomes a full-time job and most of us are single-employee companies, so that means we have had to put our businesses on hold.
  • Many of the software suppliers on whom we depend for running our businesses do not currently offer us the ability to comply (e.g. Privacy Shield or tick boxes on opt-in forms to offer granularity of consent). Despite working with them, many will not bring in the changes we need until long after the 25th May deadline.
  • Changing to alternative suppliers would cost thousands and could take months.
  • GDPR-fatigue in consumer inboxes means that those microbusinesses who are re-confirming their list are seeing 10% as the typical confirmation rate, even when their subscribers love their emails. This means they could lose 90% of their subscribers – the life-blood for their business – after May 25th.

 

We therefore need an emergency extension to the 25th May deadline for microbusinesses, especially those who are at the smaller end of this sector. We need until the end of this year to be able to properly comply with GDPR, without seriously damaging our businesses.

 

We are asking Elizabeth Denham at the ICO and Andrew Griffiths, the UK’s Small Business Minister, to help make this happen.

More background on the GDPR rules and how they affect micro business is here.

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