The ePrivacy Regulation (PECR) is set to particularise GDPR for electronic communications and is focused only on electronics — devices, processing techniques, storage, browsers etc.

It is the successor to the current ePrivacy Directive, known as the ‘Cookie Law’ because it has governed the statement frequently seen on Europe-based sites that declares users agree to the use of cookies if they agree to use the site.

According to the e-Privacy rules of email marketing (Reg.22), marketing emails & texts should not be sent to individuals without specific consent, although there are limited exceptions for existing customers. 

According to recent survey, 17 out of 24 regulatory authorities were unprepared for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), when it was introduced on 25 May 2018.

Regardless of these statistics, organisations cannot afford to become complacent, as all businesses are at risk of data breaches. Therefore, GDPR compliance must be continually enforced.

The Consumer Rights Association Which? have devised a report after monitoring 29 popular apps utilised by both iPhone and Android users, in which they discovered the underhanded tactics of several app companies when obtaining personal data.

Which? found that several of these companies uncovered borderline-lawful means in order to obtain unnecessary information from customers who were unaware, as they neither had the time nor were willing to read the overcomplicated and long data protection policies. After the consumer body found that:

“Based on average reading it would take 22 hours, 21 minutes to read all the policies in one go.”

The report also showed that despite the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being implemented in May 2018, there were still organisations ignoring the fundamentals of the regulation: