Government to Business #4: GDPR & communicating regulatory change
Welcome. To government to business the, go-to location for, executives, delivering, digital, services, to business and, now, here's, your host gavin. Atkinson. Welcome. To another episode of government, to business this, week we're going to be looking at a. Very. Topical issue in, the news and that, is the changes. That are occurring in, the european, union and, before anyone who's outside of the european, european, union, starts, switching, off this, is equally, applicable to any government who's involved in. Implementing. Regulations, and how to actually communicate that, regulation, to their businesses. This. Week the EU, actually puts into place the general, data protection, regulation. Now. That's usual. Wonderful, government's speak for, the changes, that are occurring basically. Across, all, businesses, when, it comes to the way that they manage personal. Data privacy. All those type of really really good things, we've. Obviously seen a lot of things in recent. Months with Cambridge analytic, Oh with, the way that Facebook, and other businesses, actually manage their, personal, information and personal data about citizens, and this. Is interesting because this regulation, actually was put into place by the EU two, years ago but it only comes into effect as. Of the 25th, of May, 2018. Now. You'd be amazed, with the fact that it's been 2 plus years since the actual the European, Union Parliament actually, signed off on these regulations and, it's now coming into effect and, the fact that nobody. Is. Actually buddy, that's probably a bit of a bit, of a long straw to draw there many. Many, businesses, aren't aware of actually what they need to do. They. Are increasingly becoming, aware of this regulation, because, it is just everywhere, within, mainstream. Media and also within the the Twitter universe and, all those other wonderful places as well and, that's got a lot to do with the fact that many, businesses, don't know how to comply, now. If. You're putting yourself in the shoes of an actual business owner and you, know or you've heard, there's a new regulation. That's coming into place that, you know it's going to impact on your business, where. Is the logical, place you're, going to be going to to find that information to, help you implement and meet those, regulatory. Requirements. Now. You've got one of two choices really. As. Far as as as many businesses, would be concerned, the, first one and the most logical one would be you'd go to Google and. Because. That's, the way that we all work nowadays. So. By, going to Google you'll likely to be searching, for what's. The words you've heard now, within, the, most. Of the European. Nations. Within the EU and that's not many it's. Obviously the United Kingdom there's Ireland. Basically. The general, data protection, regulation. Is known by its acronym and that's been what's been referred to within the media GDP. Are, with. In many, of the other European. Languages. It's basically, referred to by. Alternate. Acronyms. I guess and that's based on you, know what, the actual language is that people are speaking but. In most cases it's. Something a little, bit closer to and probably the most common one we kind of see, relates. I guess to France. Relates. To Germany. Relates to Spain, and that's. Instead. Of GDP. Our it's kind of referred to as RG PD, a, wonderful. Thing there another series of acronyms, all mixed up I, can't remember exactly what that word is when you kind of mix up the same letters but it's sealed means the same thing but you know what I mean so. Chances. Are you're going to be going to Google, and you can be searching for those terms now. I didn't, eh I wrote an article around, this probably, about a couple of months ago and the main reason for that was a lot, of the papers within the the, UK. Were reporting, that businesses. Didn't, know about this change and we're really really grappling, with the problem, and.
That Particular article, looked at how the. UK. Was dealing, with gdpr but. Also how its main. Partners. Or competitors. Depending on which way you look at it in this new breaks at world France. Germany Italy, and Spain were actually, managing, this, and. You. Do to the wonders of the internet abusing, VPNs, and so forth I was able to go in and. Pretend, that I was, effectively, a business. Using. The local, version of Google within the UK within, France within Spain, and so on and searching. For those particular keywords that. Businesses. Were going to be searching for now. When I put that and, wrote that article two, months ago which. Is called sleepwalking, into a European government to, business disaster. What, I found, was that generally. Speaking the, experience, as far as the customers, the business customer, was concerned, was you, know frankly, atrocious. When. Someone, went to Google and they would search for these terms. The. Actual, chances, of them finding what they were after was pretty. Low when it came to getting an authoritative, source and, that authoritative, source, being government. Government. Should be there providing this information, in a trustworthy, manner. Providing. It in a way that's easy to consume, easy, to understand, how a business owner should be able to pick up those regulatory, changes, when it comes to data protection and managing. Privacy, and implement. It within their business, one. Of the key challenges I guess involved, in all that is the fact that when. Many, businesses, look to government they tend to look to awards you know an actual domain name, which identifies, that, level of trust and that obviously, involves, in many, jurisdictions having. A dot gov domain. Whether. That's you know you have a obviously a country, a top-level, domain country. Yeah. Addition. To that such. As you know dot u K dot. F R where EMSA be the case you. Tend to look for that now, different, jurisdictions, do things in different ways so. Whilst. Some. Some. Areas for around the world Australia, for myself as an, example we would tend to have you know top-level domains being something like a gov, dot a you much. The same way we would have a.com Dyer, you, same. Thing in UK for businesses do you'd be having something along lines of code. Okay. And for government gov. UK. Some. Governments do things differently and I just don't have that at all it's just straight dot fr, for. France as an example a, handful, within Spain it's just a straight dot des which. Does make things a little bit more challenging. Anyway. I digress a little bit the main reason here in the main thing I want to focus on is the fact that when, I've read that original article there, was a lot of issues there with, the fact that, governments. Weren't, being found in Google. Some. Of those caught it was a lot the way that the way that government has structured, itself and presented, this information. The. Usually. The responsible. Agency. Within each of these jurisdictions, tends. To be like, an Information. Commissioner. Or the office of an Information, Commissioner, and in. A lot of these jurisdictions, they simply don't, run off a gov, domain, in. The UK is an example, later on offered org dot. UK domain. Which is for, ICO, which is information commission's office. Now. Unless you actually happen to know if you're in you. Know if you're a business owner that this actually is a Thor, attentive source it's an independent source that's being kind of set up as a quasi, government, organization. In the sense it's meant to be an arm's length from government but it still ultimately reports, through the government. Your. Government may have different words for this statutory that's already pretends, to be the case. What. We tend to find is that businesses. Are looking for that gov domain trying to find who. Is an authoritative source I can get this information from and. If they don't find it that is you, know we'll move on to something that does look like it and one of the main problems I found when I was originally looking at this was a. Number. Of businesses and one business in particular was very very, astute, in the, way it presented, itself to. Business. Owners within, the European Union and elsewhere when, it comes to this regulation, and that's. The fact that they set themselves up on the, domain name EU. GDP. Org. Now. I mentioned. Before around, the fact that you know people look towards a gov, as a Thorat, ativ source. An independent, source, dot. Edu.
Similar, Boat dot-org. Is probably. In the same type of ilk you. Tend not to expect. You. Know a commercial. Operation, to gentle be on a dog, you expected calm. Or. One, of the many other different variations, of domain names having. A dog, so it makes it kind of sounds like it's almost like semi-official it, could actually be official, and, that doesn't kind of you know it lends, itself to that when you consider that many. You. Know quasi, government, organizations, or supra, national. Government organizations, like the EU they tend to go around, on.org. Domains, so. It would not be unexpected. At all for a business to see something like a EU GDP org. And expect. It to be a government, or an European, Union, government. Website that's. Simply not it's, run by a private company they've, actually done a wonderful, job of presenting themselves. Almost. As being government, but with that crossing, that line and. Actually. You, know saying we, are government, so, they've, done things the right way in, the sense that everything is totally legal I'm not disparaging, them whatsoever in questioning, the legality of, the information, they provide and the way that they present themselves. It. Personally as I said in the article it's not the way that I'd like to do business I'd rather be up front and be quite transparent about things but. It's the way that they've chosen to market. Themselves and in doing so they've, done exceptionally, well the. Fact that they're well, and truly at the top of the search engine results placements, for many. Many, searches. It, doesn't matter which jurisdiction, you happen to be in you're, generally, finding, this particular website and. One of the problems I guess with all that is not only is you. Know businesses, likely to be using that particular service, which, means that they're likely to be to kind of outreach, and you. Know try to hook up with this particular company, for advice which no doubt you know they'll pay for but. It kind of masks. The fact that you know governments tend to want to present, themselves in a certain way and independent. Why businesses. Expect that as well and they're looking for that, and, they can't find that they're gonna go to wherever they expect next. The. Other way of course that, businesses. Are likely to be trying to find that authoritative. Independent. Information from government it's actually to go straight to the government websites themselves and to search for that and when, I did this particular review. Two months ago a lot. Of governments did this very, very, poorly. It didn't matter whether you were looking at the. UK, France. Germany. Italy. No. Body was. Basically putting up front here, are these regulations, that are coming into place that are going to have a monumental, impact on your business and they do have a monumental impact on you know the actual. Financial. Results can be up to four, percent of a other company's, earnings and it goes into the millions, of dollars that, they can be fined for not complying. And. I should actually say this law. Actually. Doesn't just apply to a business, operating within the European, Union it applies globally, so. That if you're an American business and you happen to be doing business in, the EU you're, selling your services into, the EU or. Any other jurisdiction, around, the world who is selling, to and, keeping personal, information, about customers in the European, Union. You. Actually need to kind of meet this regulation, I mean. If you don't you, could have the potential to be up for you know quite severe fines. The. The issue I guess as I said before was. The fact that many governments don't, present this information very very well. Now. I found, when I first wrote this that Spain was doing a half decent job so, well, done to them but everyone else was generally doing a very very poor of it, now. Two months down the track I would have thought that governments. Would be going we, really, need to be doing something about this where how do we kind of get this up on the radar of our, government portals now whether, that's a citizen portal or more particularly a business portal and, the. Problem is that's. Pretty, far, and few in between there's, not many governments, that actually have that that, collective, view, of. Creating. A seamless, experience. For. The business owner the business, it's. Still way too fragmented. Into agency, silos which is just an absolute, you. Know tragedy. As far, as businesses, are concerned it's actually a tragedy for government because there's missing, out on this opportunity, to, create and make, it easy for businesses in their area to start and grow and, in doing so employ.
Which Is what. Governments, want they want to kind of see growth they want to see the economy growing they want to see people being employed so. It's it's crazy that they're not actually doing this in many, many different areas so, to that end I. Expected. Two months down the track for people to be doing things differently, I said, quite frankly they're not doing a very good job at all. The. One area that I found that had changed a little bit to a certain extent was. Within France so, in France nowadays, as, opposed to to two months ago when. You do a search for the. Term are GPD, the, number one result within google.fr. If. You happen to kind of run out of a French IP address is the, Seon Il dot if our home pages. Which is a commission sorry I'm not gonna do a very good French accent accent here so please please don't, email. Me about it but the Commission lesson now the information. Basically. The information Commission a Freedom, of Information Commission. Within France. So. They're. Doing a good job in the sense that now they can be found within, Google. But, if you go to any, of the French, government. Websites, for business there's. Still no, mention, whatsoever this, regulation, up front within features. Within. Alerts, within. The, overarching, information. Architecture, so, the UK really isn't much better when it comes to this the. Businesses. Great website, which is kind, of like a I suppose. A splinter, web site off gov, dot UK still. Has absolutely. No mention whatsoever this, regulatory, change the. Actual official governor. Kylie website, we didn't to be the portal for all citizens. And businesses. Nothing. No, mention whatsoever a feat within the features, very. Little information at, all even. When you kind of drill down into the data protection area, for businesses. It's. A real hodgepodge it's an absolute, mess I, kind. Of shake. My head every single time I kind of start using this website because, it is just so. Badly architect, and so badly designed for, businesses. In particular, and. When you use the search or, you can pretty much find if you're looking for the GDP are is you. Know attempts, I suppose of where government. Has attempted to contract. Out to businesses, and. Therefore what it's going to do when it comes to data protection to, meet obligations. With, GD Peter. It's. Really really really bad. Situation. Within, Italy no, change whatsoever still. A very very poor experience within. Spain, again. They, haven't actually made any changes, to the the, Information, Commissioner's websites within Spain, which is okay because it was actually quite a quite, a good experience, in the sense that there was many. Many features. And many things being pushed towards, businesses, around the, changes. But. When it comes to using Google to, say within, Google DES. Searching. It's kind of the the official government pages are coming behind, Wikipedia. They're coming behind businesses. Such as EU GDP, org. Who. You. Know providing, that that. Yeah, how can how, can a business help your business comply.
With These regulations although, usually, doing it in such a way that it's not. Often, entirely, clear, who, the actual owner of the website is. So. That's, how, things sit when it comes to a number of those, governments. Germany wasn't much different at all. So. I started, going okay because I, started, thinking about well, the. Fact that these regulations do impact on many businesses, around, the world how, do they apply and how is it being dealt with within say for example United States. So. To that end I've kind, of had a bit of a look around if I was using Google very. Very bad experience, again no fountain I couldn't find any, government. Websites, at all within the United States talking. About this on the. Ten results from, Google let's be honest that's all that anybody actually, really looks at nowadays, so. I went to usa.gov, slash business, nothing. I went, to the Small Business Administration, website. Nothing. I had. A look around. Export.gov. Now. There's, nothing on the homepage, with. A little bit of navigating, eventually, I found some information which, was around that the guidance that could be available for. American. Businesses on gdpr however. It was really, really high-level and. Towards. The end of the big long page, you. Had a link off to the European, Union's page, around gdpr, and bizarrely. And I don't know why. This. Particular government website does this but it actually printed, out within. The FDA article, the, URL in full but, didn't turn it into a hyperlink, so if, you actually wanted to go to that page you had to kind of copy it paste it, put it into your browser window, not. A very good experience whatsoever. So. I do have a look at a couple of other sites because, I obviously last time around I looked at the bigger sites like the UK France and there so forth and. I thought well I'll look at Ireland I mean Island is is you know they generally. Speaking you, know they have, English as a main language, and. I, had, a look at gov. Dot i ii, which. Is kind of like i suppose the equivalent, of god UK. Had. Just had, an experience to be perfectly frank you, know it was like just the way like gov dat UK presents thing this is this big long laundry list all, in alphabetical. Order when. It came to say the business resources, and, after. A long long long long amount of scrolling I found, nothing there to help. Me when it came to comply. With this particular regulation, I, thought, okay well I'll go to an agency page, maybe that might help so I entered the Department of Business Enterprise and innovation, now. There was nothing on their homepage there. Was actually no logical, path within their navigation. To find anything so. I went and used their search result use. A search engine and surprisingly. The actual number one result term brought up was around gdpr, which, had a really good overview so, I guess if you were an Irish business and you to comply with this regulation if, you're kind of lucky, enough to strike it that way you're gonna find what you need but, you know good luck on Google de.
There's Nothing there about the Irish government the, the official. EU website, comes in at number 8 much. The same way as in America it comes in at number 8 on google.com and. Ireland, on Google that ie comes in 8 and. Again behind, Wikipedia. Behind news and blog pages and, these. Company. Sites that are putting themselves forward to to assist businesses and. In doing so in such a way that it's really not sometimes clear, who, they are I have. Had a look at a couple of other sites the, Netherlands, does a. Remarkably. Excellent, job in some, ways but, in others doesn't, quite meet, the mark so the reason I say that is, if. You go to Google, or NL, and you, happen to mask yourself within your VPN, to be coming, from the, Netherlands and searching. For GDP, are searching, for our, GPD. There's. Not. A lot when it comes to the government space again, Wikipedia. Aug, d EU. GDP, org. Are. Doing very very well in, the results listings there the, official EU sites coming at fourth and fifth and this. I guess presents, a broader, issue for, the. Netherlands, government, when it comes to domain strategy, and linking strategy, that's, probably a story for another day but I'll kind of say look they probably could do better in that particular space. That. Said they. Have done a remarkable. Effort and one, I truly actually want to congratulate, the. Netherlands government for when, it came to the experience, on their, whole of government business. Portal, which is business, gov door NL now. On their home page there was a very very prominent link through, to the changes, with GDP are when. You follow that link they had some very very good useful, advice. And. Also. A. Really. Handy, diagnostic. Tool which. Was similar I think to the, the, UK's, information. Commission's GDP, a tool where. It, actually walked, you through you kind of answered question, about the way that you're business users. Personal, data and, presented. You know a bit of an assessment with how you're tracking against, meeting. And complying, with the regulation. So. Great. Experience, as far as a Netherlands. Business would be concerned, with trying to find a Dutch business trying to find this information. Within. The actual website and being. Able to have their questions answered, and on, top of all that actually having, at last a wonderful. Experience, as far as bringing together business, information, across all of government into a single, location so. That's. Poor, effort of me kind of clapping ah I. Really. Want to kind of tip my head off to to the Netherlands great job there in that space. The, last one I wanted to refer to is, actually Switzerland. And this is interesting because Switzerland. Whilst, it surrounded. By countries, who are all members of the EU isn't, a member of the EU itself, due, to various various, reasons which I might get into again and, if you hop. On Google dot, CH, which is the the Swiss version of Google and search. For the right same type of search, terms as I was mentioning before what. They've done and what they've done well here is coming at number one and number two and the search engine results, in Google Docs eh were. The, actual government pages. Around the. Regulatory, changes now. These were presented. In French and for. Those of you who aren't aware within Switzerland, it's it's, very much a bilingual.
Nation. Where, various. Devan which count on you happen to be living in some, parts of switzerland speak french some, speak german, some speak italian of course there's, a fair amount of smattering, also of other languages there in english obviously as an international, language of business. So. To, have number, one and number two in google, linking. Straight through to that authoritative, government, source within. The admin, dot CH, website speaks. Volumes, as far as I'm concerned and looking at the back end with the domain, strategy, you can clearly, see that Swiss. Government has been very very smart indeed when, it comes to the way that they're presenting, information and the way that creating, these backlinking. Strategies, to. Ensure that google. Is placing, them very. Much at the top of their search results now. When. You go into those pages the ones that are coming through at number one and number two number, one gives a high-level overview and, then links through to a, PDF document which. Is an 11 page document, around, guidance. About compliance, with GDP. Are the. Number two on the list actually is the document itself, now. I can't, really give you any, clear. Analysis. As far as I'm concerned about the. Veracity. Of the information, and to what extent it's it's useful, and easy to you know implement, within a business, mainly. Because I don't speak French and I can't read French so. From. That perspective my, apologies, on that but, my guess and it. Might be totally wrong so please let me know if you can speak French and you go to those documents in you read them and you find they're not very useful I would, expect, that the, approach, that's been adopted busts with some generally, very very professional in this particular space and I would be incredibly. Surprised if the information, provided, the Swiss businesses, weren't. Accurate, and also easy to use. So. Wrapping. Things up what I just want to kind of refer to and it doesn't get it doesn't matter what regular, what, country you're in what, jurisdiction you're, in when. It comes to providing changes. Significant. Changes, to regulatory, information, it's. Imperative, that you got that information out there that you're communicating to, businesses, now, I've, obviously been using, Google as the key way of doing so because that's the way the 90% of all, businesses. When they're. Generally. Speaking looking. For information and need their answers their questions answered that's, where they go to but. Obviously you should be looking at a broader communication, strategy, a rounding. Around offline, media as well as that online media, space and part, of that offline media if you have you, know the actual access, to the registration, the business registration, the information, would be to actually have that direct mail marketing occurring. As well to raise awareness. Amongst. Businesses. In that juris in your jurisdiction around. These changes, if they are, and changes, one, thing though it's absolutely, imperative to do is to, have the right strategy in place to present. That information where, it's a significant, change to business in, a clear concise format, and making, sure that it's easily accessible, not. Just from your actual, agency. Website or wherever happens to be where that information is stored but, it's it's linked together it's all part of a seamless experience.
So. That any business when they're going to you, know an actual relevant, business website run for by, government within your jurisdiction will, find that information, will, discover, that information. And in, doing so that's also going to help Google find that, information so, that it is being discovered and when business is looking on Google to try to find that as well that's. It for today I look, forward to hearing, from you if you've got any advice or, suggestions. On, topics. In the future, please. Let me know at Gavin, at government, to business comm, if you, found this interesting of, course make sure you write and recommend, on iTunes. Or stitcher and defecate, of course to subscribe. Thanks. For listening to government, to business for. Show notes and how Gavin can help your department, or agency, visit. Government. To business comm. You. You.
2018-05-27 18:38
