How to implement a GDPR compliant online booking system

  1. By Alexis on 2021-08-21

How to implement a GDPR compliant online booking system

The Data Protection Directive, also known as the GDPR, has recently been implemented in most European countries. This new law represents a challenge for companies but also for consumers who are concerned about the protection of their privacy.

As a company, GDPR influences many aspects of your business: from the recruitment of new employees, the establishment of contracts with your customers, or the choice of your IT tools.

RGPD and online reservation system

If you decide to add an online reservation system on your website, like ours, it is important to consider the impact that this will have on the privacy of your users

Indeed, the addition of such a system is not a trivial element. To enable digital appointment making yes, you will have to ask for several personal information from your customers: name, first name, phone number, …

This information must be treated with care.

The choice of the appointment scheduling software

First, focus on the selection of your appointment scheduling software. Once you have made your choice based on the software’s features, check its terms of use. Is the software you want to use based in Europe, what is its data handling policy, does it store information securely, and does it exchange information with any third-party companies.

At Datelist, we make every effort to ensure that your customers’ data is protected, encrypted, on servers with the highest standard of computer security. But that’s not all, we also provide our customers with a whole array of small to better manage the privacy of its users. As a company based in Europe, we also keep data in a data center near the customer and don’t communicate information of a sensitive nature for any commercial reason with external partners.

Your reservation management procedure

As an employee or company manager, you also have a role to play. Choosing the right software is not enough. You also have to make sure that the data processing you are going to carry out complies with the legislation.

Always make sure of the following points:

  • Your customer must be aware of the data you are collecting from him. Your customer must be made aware of the nature of the information you are going to record, but also of the legitimate reason for your processing of this data. It is forbidden to collect by default information that does not correspond to the main reason for your customer’s booking if you have not informed him/her beforehand. If your customer provides you with his/her email address and phone number to be able to make an appointment with you, you will not necessarily be able to send him/her commercial communications.
  • Your customer must have the possibility to contact you to be able to modify or delete the personal information you have about him. Make sure that your contact information is visible on your website or at least close to where you are going to implement your booking system.
  • Don’t keep too many copies of your customers’ personal information unnecessarily. If you use software such as Datelist, your data is safe. If your customer requests to delete or correct this information, you can do so directly from your web browser. This will not be the case if you keep multiple copies and disseminate your customers’ information.
  • Be careful when sharing data. If you exchange data from your reservation system with other tools, such as a CRM, a Sales or marketing software, make sure that your customer is aware and that the treatment of his data is done with the greatest care.
  • Finally, do not neglect your own IT security. Even if you use secured software to process your data, make sure that your machine and those of your employees are secure. Don’t hesitate to call on IT professionals to check your installation and your internal procedures in terms of security: a badly chosen password, malicious software installed on your computer, and it’s a guaranteed data leak.

Conclusion

Thanks to this article, you now have the basics that will allow you to add a reservation module to your website: both in terms of the choice of reservation software and for the obligations on your part. At Datelist, we do our utmost to ensure the protection of your customers’ data. But we are also here to support you. If you have any questions about our online booking and appointment scheduling software, you can contact us directly via the contact section of our website, or by email at contact@datelist.io

References

https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-gdpr-general-data-protection-regulation-understanding-and-complying-gdpr-data-protection https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679