By now you’ve probably heard about the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (the ”GDPR”) taking effect from Friday, May 25th 2018. The GDPR is a new sweeping regulation in EU law concerning data protection and privacy for individuals in the European Union and the European Economic Area. The GDPR not only affects businesses in these regions, but also anyone worldwide processing data on individuals in these regions. For example: an entity based in the United States, who is processing data on behalf of a customer in Germany, must comply with the GDPR. It is important to ensure your website and web host are compliant.
Rochen welcomes the GDPR, as we believe it will strengthen EU data protection rights. The GDPR provides seven specific rights which you can read more about on the official European Commission website. Rochen is pleased to confirm that we have spent significant time and effort in the run up to the May 25th deadline preparing for the GDPR and are in full compliance with the new regulation. Some of the steps we have taken to ensure GDPR compliance include:
- Publication of a new Privacy Notice.
- Publication of a new Data Processing Agreement (“DPA”).
- Continued registration with the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office who, under the GDPR, act as Rochen’s “Supervisory Authority”.
- Begun steps to register our U.S. subsidiary under the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (“USITA”).
- In addition to our normal channels, the establishment of a dedicated privacy contact email address: [email protected] as a backup resource for GDPR related matters.
- Software updates to our checkout process and My Rochen customer portal.
- Review and strengthening of internal processes and procedures as well as agreements with third-party vendors.
Rochen’s commitment to our customers privacy, and the GDPR in general, does not stop on May 25th. We have some further improvements planned including new GDPR-related features within the My Rochen customer portal to make compliance even easier.
If you are already a customer and have questions please reach out to us by opening a ticket via the My Rochen customer portal or, if you’re not already a customer but are considering hosting with Rochen and have questions, please email us at: [email protected].