General Data Protection Regulations Compliance: Ensuring Privacy of User Generated Content
Data privacy is important for protecting data from falling into the hands of wrong people, businesses and organisations. It is also interpreted as an important human right similar to free speech. Businesses must ensure that their customers’ personal data is taken care of in a proper manner.The establishment of sound data practices and making it well-known will benefit businesses by offering its customers the much needed peace of mind.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was brought into effect on May 25th, 2018. It is primarily personal data which permits an individual to be directly or indirectly identified from that data. It also includes a person’s name, location, username, etc or less obvious things like IP addresses and cookie identifiers.
GDPR can also be applied to businesses that are based outside of European Union (EU). The GDPR hence not only focuses on data protection and privacy in the EU, but the European Economic Area as well.
Impact of GDPR on Companies’ Data Protection and Privacy
1.Consent: It is mandatory for companies to have their users’ consent prior to collecting their personal data. This implies that users must be opted in instead of being opted out.
2. Right to Access: Personal data must be accessible to users and they must know how it is being utilized once it has been collected. The company should offer a copy of the personal data in electronic format and free of cost as and when requested.
3. Right to be Forgotten: This equips users with the right to erase their personal data, stop further spread of data, and also prevent the spread of data by third parties.
4. Data Portability: This implies the right of a user to receive personal data relating to them which has been offered by them in a commonly use and machine readable format. It gives them the right to transmit the data to another controller.
Impact of GDPR on Content Moderation
User Generated Content (UGC) has had a significant impact on online content by making content moderation indispensible and ensuring the brand’s safety, appropriateness and alignment with brand value. UGC can be done in-house as well as outsourced to specialists along with certain key benefits.
1.Savings costs: By outsourcing content moderation, one can save the costs of hiring and training in-house staff who have the skills and experience to handle your specific requirements.
2. Enhanced efficiency: Outsourcing content moderation also results in enhancement in efficiency as these firms have the tools, processes and expertise for handing vast volumes of content in a quick and effective manner. These firms also utilize machine learning algorithms for identifying and removing inappropriate content. It also enables one to define inappropriate content on their own and enforce your policies.
3. Expertise: A team of experts having the right skills and experience helps in ensuring the content complies with applicable laws and regulations. This helps in maintaining the integrity of your brand.
4. Scalability: This is a major challenge faced by content moderation companies for meeting the increasing volume of user-generated content. One also needs to have a specialist firm with resources to help in scaling up and down as per requirement.
5. Enhanced user experience: Content moderation enhances user experience by ensuring the UGC is safe, proper and relevant for the target audience. This assists in creating a positive and engaging user environment along with increasing engagement and loyalty.
6. Minimized logistics and overhead costs: A major challenge that an in-house content moderation team faces is logistics along with overhead costs. This involves equipment, software expenses, office space as well as other operational costs.
7. More flexibility and adaptability: Content moderation outsourcing involves working with a team of experts who are well-versed with current tools and techniques. It also requires adjusting with changing moderation needs.
In essence, GDPR involves companies becoming more transparent regarding the way they utilize and collect data. It also includes offering lucid explanations regarding their moderation policies and the way they utilize personal data in their content moderations practices. It further includes benefits like cost savings, greater efficiency, expertise, scalability, and a better user experience. It also has implications for users having more control over their data like them having the right to request their data is deleted.
Summary: The GDPR permits companies to adopt a streamlined approach to data privacy and security. It also involves taking stock of all assets and maintaining record of necessary infrastructure components.
