The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is coming into effect from May, 2018. As far as marketing is concerned, it is going to affect it in various ways.

Econsultancy has published a summary of its interaction with leading marketers on how GDPR will affect lead generation.

Ben Davis says, “Are you a marketer who uses landing pages to harvest personal data in return for a whitepaper download, access to a game, entry to a prize draw?

These techniques are a mainstay of modern marketing. But how are they impacted by the GDPR? I had a rummage through the legalese to find out.

Marketers need separate consent for marketing and data sharing

Personal data must be collected for ‘specified, explicit and legitimate purposes’ according to the GDPR.

Part of being specific is ensuring that, where you are asking for consent as legal basis for processing, the purposes for processing are not confused and muddled together into one all encompassing checkbox.

Such a user experience would mean the data subject cannot seek separate consent for each purpose, and therefore would suffer a lack of freedom. This is why GDPR guidance recommends ‘granularity’.

How does this relate to lead generation? Well, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29) – which is essentially a body with a data protection representative from each EU state – offers the following example in its guidance on consent“.

How the GDPR will affect lead generation: Talking points for marketers

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