Transcript of the Video
Hi, everyone. Suzanne Dibble here, data protection law expert, coming to you live and uncut from the plane. It's an hour flight ahead of me. Not feeling the best, to be honest, and need to do a quick video. Oop. Because of my commitment to do a video a day, which after this long doing it I'm not going to fail on.
So a really quick one today and there have been a few questions in the group about B2B marketing. Now I also just want to say, if you haven't seen my post already, that I'm going to be doing a comprehensive webinar on GDPR and marketing that will cover all of this, but for those of you who can't wait for an answer, then hopefully this will help you.
So is there a distinction between B2B and B2C in GDPR? The answer is no, there isn't. Now if people have told you that that's because they're confusing another regulation, PECR, which stands for the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, and that does distinguish between B2B and B2C marketing.
Now PECR talks about corporate subscribers, which are essentially limited companies and individual subscribers, who are individuals, sole traders and partnerships, okay? So that's where the distinction comes in. Now under PECR if you're sending unsolicited direct marketing emails to individuals, then you need to have prior consent to be able to do that. You don't need that consent if you're emailing unsolicited marketing to limited companies, okay?
Now a step before that even is, is it personal data that you're dealing with? Because if you're sending a cold email to [email protected], then there's no personal data in that email address, and it doesn't come under the scope of GDPR. Remember personal data is only when that data does identify or is capable of identifying a living individual, okay?
So if you haven't got the name of an individual in the email address then it's totally outside the ambit of GDPR, okay? So say that you're emailing a limited company, but you've got personal data in that email address, okay? So we need to go back to basics in terms of GDPR and think about what is our lawful ground of processing? Now for existing customer I would say that there is a good legitimate interest ground to be emailing those customers marketing, okay? I've done a number of videos on that, so please do watch that, and I'll also be covering that in the webinar as well.
For past customers, going back six months or more, people who wouldn't reasonably expect to hear from you if you're marketing, then chances are you're going to need to get their consent, and the way that you would do that is through, ideally best practice is through a tick box, okay? Now GDPR doesn't specifically say that you need to have tick boxes. What it says is that there needs to be affirmative action, okay?
Now a very obvious way of getting that is by a tick box. What GDPR specifically says is that pre-ticked boxes are not okay, because there has to be genuine choice and control, okay? And if someone just doesn't see the tick box, and it's already pre-ticked, that's not genuine choice and control. But GDPR does not actually say you need tick boxes. What it says is that there needs to be affirmative action, okay?
And I'll be going into that in more detail on the webinar, okay? So prospects, B2B prospects, again if it's personal data that's in there, then the same rules apply as it was B2C, okay? And again you're probably looking at a consent ground of processing, okay? So I hope that clears up some of the confusion there. I'm going to keep this video short and sweet, not least because the plane is now starting to fill up, and it's going to get quite noisy in a minute.
Speaker 2: Good evening, ladies and gentleman. Welcome abroad your British Airways-
And they're starting on the intercom. So I'll leave it there, but if you haven't yet seen my post about the webinar I'm doing, doing a really comprehensive webinar next week all about marketing. I'll be covering all of this kind of stuff. Find the post and comment with your specific question about marketing because I'll make sure ... Hope you can hear me over the Tannoy. I'll make sure that I address that on the webinar. I'm not entirely sure when it's going to be yet, but it will be sometime next week. So do make sure you post your question in the comments, and obviously make sure that you come on to the live webinar because if things aren't clear to you, or you've got individual circumstances that you'd like me to answer on the webinar, then obviously that'll be to your interest to actually be listening in live.
There will be a replay, so don't panic if you can't make that time. Then do have a listen to the replay, okay? So that's all I'm going to say for now. I'll catch you on the other side.
