What is GDPR?

What is it?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It became law in the EU on May 25, 2018.

When the EU officially gave GDPR life, many of us were inundated with e-mails about new privacy policies from across the internet for the services we use. While it's not unusual to have a policy update to review occasionally, it was pretty unique to have so many services push those out all at once. So why all the fuss? After years of incubation, the date set forth by the European Commission arrived and compliance for its wide sweeping referendum on data protection was now law for all European citizens. 

How does this help me?

GDPR grants some specific rights to citizens of the EU. The biggest one is that you have the right to have your account and all personal information permanently deleted. Furthermore, the company holding it must comply with that request in a timely fashion. You can also do things like object to the use of your personal data for marketing purposes -- don't worry, none of that happening here anyways. You can, and should, read more on those rights here.

How does this affect my account?

Truth be told, we've always taken your data seriously. Once GDPR arrived we added some things to further honor the spirit of the new law:

A shorter data retention policy for live data whereby only the most recent 90 days is stored in our database.

Downloadable archival data in a machine readable format to allow for data portability.

Option to permanently delete a specific contact's record from our database.

Total account deletion upon request.

What if I'm not a citizen of the EU?

Then you can thank your nearest EU friend for raising the standard by which companies on the internet have started to treat their contacts' data. In order to comply with the new law, most companies that operate on the internet are choosing to follow the same guidelines for all of their users anywhere in the world. While companies aren't technically required to honor the law for non-EU citizens, they ought to, and we all should pressure them to if they aren't. 

I'm still not sure what this all means.

No problem, we are happy to answer any questions you might have. Let us know if you would like any clarification.

Updated on: 03/12/2021