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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

GDPR chaos and confusion

21/5/2018

6 Comments

 
Apart from weekly 99-word stories and checking the edits for my forthcoming anthology, I’ve rather neglected my own fiction in recent weeks. Partly because it’s planting and sowing season in my vegetable garden (a.k.a. feeding the slugs); partly because I’ve been grappling with the new General Data Protection Regulations which will become EU law later this week.

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For many of us, the most we’ve heard of GDPR is in the torrent of emails requesting us to confirm our willingness to continue receiving communications from organisations that hold our email addresses. Some will have felt relieved at a perceived opportunity to stop the spam (although I doubt it will work that way). Some might be irritated by the demands on their time (even if it only takes a couple of clicks); others amused at the pleas for a continued relationship or threats of missing out. Some, like me, who operate an email newsletter, might have been anxiously wondering about their own obligations.
 
I think there’s a herd mentality afoot: if other people are asking recipients to resubscribe, shouldn’t I do likewise? Yet this seems to be a herd without a leader: a procession of kids leaving the town of Hamelin without a piper at the front. Or one of those dreadful chain letters that infected our school days before the digital age. Should I resist?
 
Because there are risks in sending that please-opt-in email. Like Theresa May calling a snap general election last year to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations, it could backfire. Just as going to the people reduced her majority to the extent that she had to strike a deal with a party that cares so much about its electorate it fights to deny them the reproductive rights available in the rest of the UK, either through apathy or irritation, the numbers can go down. Some sources quote a miserly 10% response rate; that can’t be good for small businesses or the economy as a whole.
 
Besides, I believe my newsletter address list is already GDPR compliant. When I set it up, although tempted to include everyone with whom I’d ever been in email correspondence, MailChimp’s automation system required me to confirm I had permission, and I couldn’t lie. I can proudly say that everyone on my list has either subscribed through the sign-up form on my website or given me permission at an event. So what’s there to worry about, Anne?
 

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Well, what if I’m mistaken? I don’t want to lose 90% of my subscribers, but I want to play fair. Then there are the fines, quoted in millions of euros, for messing up. Unlikely as it is that the full force of the law would descend on a Z-list author’s news delivered no more than four times a year to a few dozen recipients, standing apart requires a level of self-belief I tend to associate with people who’ve been encouraged to know their own minds since infancy.
 
Wouldn’t education be a failsafe route to getting it right? By sheer serendipity, just as I was starting to worry, I received an email from FutureLearn, not asking me to opt in, but inviting me (and thousands of others) to join
a course on GDPR. Okay, it took time I didn’t have, with headache-inducing technical terminology, but surely it would be worth the effort? Sadly, although I’ve definitely learnt something, the lecturers from the University of Groningen seemed to have bigger issues in mind than newsletter subscription confirmations.
 
My next step was Twitter where, among the jokes from people who clearly didn’t share my own anxieties, I found this post on
GDPR myths from the Information Commissioner’s Office blog. Hurrah! Refreshing consent is not strictly necessary. I can sit tight! Yet I found the following paragraph confusing:
 
It’s also important to remember that in some cases it may not be appropriate to seek fresh consent if you are unsure how you collected the contact information in the first place, and the consent would not have met the standard under our existing Data Protection Act.
 
To my understanding, these are the circumstances in which we should seek consent. So the confusion continues!


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If you are subscribed to my newsletter, you’ll have seen how I’ve managed it: explaining that the list is GDPR compliant but asking subscribers to reconfirm in order that I can demonstrate that this is the case. I don’t know if this is the perfect compromise or a fudge that will irritate my readers even more.
 
Unfortunately, with four days to go, I’m still not totally ready for GDPR. There’s more stuff to read, and a website privacy policy to write. Regarding the latter, although templates are available, they might not meet my standards of good writing. It’s tricky: as the data controller – the one who invites you to leave a digital trail in my corner of cyberspace – the buck stops with the website or newsletter author, although the data processors must also comply with GDPR. Although I agree that’s the right way round, it doesn’t feel as if I’m in charge of any of the technical stuff, and I imagine there are many others who feel the same. I don’t fully understand the mechanics of the various platforms that host my words, and it would be a shame if the only people who could move confidently through cyberspace were people fluent in both law and computer code.
 
Hopefully, everything will settle down eventually. I’m assuming, given recent exposés of some of the bigger players’ shocking disregard for privacy, GDPR will operate for the general human good. But, as when waging war against tyrants, ordinary people can find themselves casualties. I can’t believe that the threats to small businesses – in terms of the time required and potential loss of revenue in losing contact with some customers – is in the spirit of the law. But, hey, making things up is my raison d’être. Let’s hope this story has a happy ending.


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Charli Mills
22/5/2018 10:41:44 pm

Anne, thank you for expressing what's been clanking around in my mind. I've been frustrated with the GDPR compliance because I had thought (hoped) the platforms that I use would offer opt-in solutions because I'm neither conversant in code nor law. I agree: "...it would be a shame if the only people who could move confidently through cyberspace were people fluent in both law and computer code."

As a publisher of a literary community and anthology, I'm acutely sensitive to remaining transparent when it comes to author copyright. Editors and writers have always had to be mindful of plagiarism so it feels burdensome to add email and cookie compliance to what we already do. It also feels a bit humorous to think authors are sneaking around, signing up readers against their will. So, yes, I'm understanding that these guidelines meant to rein in the big tyrants roll right over those who already do business fair and square. It almost feels like the public is being punished for having been outraged by all the data privacy leaks. Thanks for bringing up this discussion!

Reply
Annecdotist
23/5/2018 01:10:37 pm

Sorry you’re experiencing similar frustrations, Charli, although good to know I’m not alone. Looks like we’re going to need a GDPR support group!
I like your suggestion this might all be a conspiracy:
It almost feels like the public is being punished for having been outraged by all the data privacy leaks.
It’s doubtful that the social media giants are able to influence EU law – although who knows, they get away with so much – it’s fascinating that they get us to collect the data which they can process in ways we don’t understand, yet if it comes from our website, we are accountable. Ignorance is no defence!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
23/5/2018 11:04:38 am

Hi Anne, Your thought processes sound similar to mine. I've gone around in circles trying to figure it all out and do what needs to be done. A confirmation opt-in response of only 10 percent seems small, and while you may capture the keen ones (like me, I signed in) you may lose potential future customers who don't make the effort to stay informed.
I've done what WordPress said to do with my blog, and I already have a privacy policy on readilearn and the developers tell me the site is all compliant. However, as you do, I also have a MailChimp newsletter. I read all their information and sent out reminder emails as they suggested. I didn't like doing it though as the usual open rate is low anyway and I thought that perhaps no one would opt back in. Perhaps that wouldn't matter too much if they weren't that keen anyway, but it is nice to see the numbers, though small, and didn't look forward to them reducing greatly. However, I have a few test subscriptions which I opted back in for, and a friend also opted back in - three times. The MC report tells me that no links have been clicked in the emails. How can that be? How will I know if anyone else has opted in if it doesn't even tell me if we've opted in. What am I supposed to do now?
Were you notified that I clicked your link and confirmed my subscription in your report?
I'm thinking I'll just send my newsletter out as usual and, if they don't want it, they can unsubscribe. I've wasted the equivalent of two days work trying to figure this out, trying to fix something that I believe, for me, wasn't broke anyway. I'm not going to give it another thought. (I hope!)

Reply
Annecdotist
23/5/2018 01:03:09 pm

Thanks, Norah, I’m quite pleased with it, even though the icons aren’t perfectly aligned. I’m going to wait until I can add the cover for my anthology before using it more widely.
Glad your developers have been (a bit) helpful regarding Readilearn’s privacy. I do think it might have been a whole lot easier if the website stuff could happen at the level of the browser, since most websites will be similar in the use of cookies etc.
Regarding MailChimp, I thought I’d read in their guidance initially that opt in wouldn’t be necessary for all newsletters, but more latterly they seemed to be pushing users to do so. But I wasn’t particularly happy with the template they offered – not just the misplaced comma, but next to no information about how the data will be used. I’m not sure my amended version was much better, although a couple have arrived in my inbox today which I found quite impressive.
Anyway, thanks for confirming your subscription! I haven’t checked yours, but I did check the one I sent to myself using my other email address. I thought – especially as they were so keenly advocating the opt in – all you’d have to do was check whether GDPR appeared next to the person’s name on the list. But it’s not so simple! It seems – although it might be simply that I haven’t discovered the easy way to do it – you have to click on each address separately, which shows up information on which newsletters you’ve sent them and whether the contact is now compliant with GDPR. Quite a faff if you have a lot of subscribers, but I’m going to keep on sending to everyone who signed up originally.
The other thing I haven’t yet figured out relates to “the right to be forgotten”. I can’t understand how I can’t delete the addresses of people who have unsubscribed. Maybe they have to apply to be forgotten? As I don’t pay for my list I can’t address my question to them directly. Confusion and chaos indeed!

Reply
Annecdotist
30/5/2018 10:25:52 am

If the “I’m quite pleased with it” confused you might be because it belongs with your comment on the Zimbabwe novels. I’m not really pleased with anything regarding GDPR! My head’s messy enough without it.
And apologies for the belated reply – the comments function has failed me for the last few days.

Shane watsoon
28/12/2020 05:22:52 am

I was looking for this information and here i found similar to this. It's very helpful and informative.<a href="https://seersco.com/articles/gdpr-training/">GDPR Training</a>

Reply



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