Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
The British Home Enhancement Trade Association (BHETA) held a forum on November 21 to advise members on the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which replaces the Data Protection Act (DPA) in May 2018.
The new regulation stipulates that any data held by any organisation must be for a specific purpose, and that confirmation of consent must be obtained from the data subject. This includes communication with customers, prospects, suppliers, staff, and service providers.
BHETA said the new act has ‘much greater scope and much tougher punishments’ for both companies and individuals at those companies, should they fail to comply.
Fifty-five 55 BHETA members attended the event. The audience heard presentations from James Howarth and Simon deMaid from solicitor Howes Percival, who gave an introduction to GDPR and key legal concepts, and supplied guidance on the explanation and overview of personal data.
Their speeches also covered how to demonstrate accountability (including technical and organisational measures, privacy notices, document retention and consent) and discussed breach notices and subject access requests.
They also advised on the Implications regarding business-to-business data, business-to-consumer data, online trading, direct marketing, data used for export and employee data.
James and Simon suggested that BHETA members who want to follow up on a one-to-one basis with any specific queries regarding GDPR should contact them at simon.demaid@howespercival.com or james.howarth@howespercival.com
Commenting on the event, BHETA housewares sector director Will Jones said: “BHETA is leading by example in terms of contacting its own membership. But given the potential penalties for non-compliance, it’s vital that all companies understand the new legal framework.
“It’s equally important that they take steps now to address the GDPR requirements. Doing so is not necessarily a quick process and in these challenging times, we must ensure that we’re able to go about our normal business, confident that we comply with the law.
“Such is the importance of this subject that we are repeating this event in late January. This will enable us to include information on the regulation updates which are due for release by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) in early January.”
For more information about BHETA and its programme of events for 2018, contact Member Services on 0121 237 1130 or visit www.bheta.co.uk.
