Those of you who are European (yes Brits included…for now) will have noticed that you’ve been receiving a lot of emails asking you to agree to new privacy terms and conditions. If you’re wondering why that is, it’s because the implementation date of the General Data Protection Regulation agreement is due on the 25th May so everyone is making sure that they are compliant with the framework that will inform how organizations process and manage your data.
With that in mind, we’d like to take this opportunity to answer any questions you might have about the General Data Protection Regulation, and explain what happens at the intersection between GDPR, WiFi Tribe and you. For all of our European Tribers far and wide, we wanted to take the opportunity to breakdown all the important changes that have been made and how they affect our interactions with you. So let’s get to it.
WHAT IS THE GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) agreement is the framework that sets the guidelines around the processing of personal data from EU citizens.
Personal data is considered to be any information that pertains to a living individual. It includes any identifiers like email addresses, telephone numbers etc.
The agreement defines the correct roles and processes organizations must have in place to ensure that any data we collect from you is secure and obtained under a lawful basis e.g. you give us your consent to collect it. There are other valid grounds under the GDPR as well but the important thing is that at least one of those grounds need to be present in order for us to be able to collect and process the data.
The whole point of the GDPR is to improve the systems for collecting data to keep it safe and accurate, but also it’s designed to stop that data being abused and give EU and EEA citizens greater control over their data and how it is used.
As previously mentioned, the agreement will be implemented on May 25th 2018 and all organizations that conduct business with any EU or EEA citizens whether they are based in the region or not, MUST comply by this date.
SO WHAT RIGHTS DO I HAVE?
The GDPR gives you a bill of rights essentially that you can exercise at any time against organizations that are processing your personal data. They include the following:-
- RIGHT TO ACCESS
- You can request access to any data that an organization is keeping about you, and learn what they have been doing with it after they’ve obtained it from you.
- RIGHT TO ERASE
- You can withdraw your consent from an organization to store and use your personal data and have that information permanently erased.
- RIGHT TO REQUEST DATA TRANSFER
- This gives you the right to transfer your data from one organization to another if they have the technical means to do so.
- RIGHT TO REQUEST CORRECTION
- You have the right to amend any data that is being kept about you to make sure that it is correct.
- RIGHT TO BE INFORMED
- All companies have to be transparent and open about how they gather data from you and they have to tell you before they collect it.
- RIGHT TO RESTRICT PROCESSING
- Under GDPR you have the right to block, restrict and suppress the use of particular parts of your personal data.
- RIGHT TO STOP PROCESSING
- Lastly, you have the right to stop organizations processing all of your personal data altogether. If you do this, there is a chance that the organization won’t be able to render any services to you which would thereby terminate the relationship completely.
WILL COMPANIES COMPLY?
In short, yes they will. All companies are obliged to abide by the framework to be able to continue providing services to European citizens. Why? Well because if they don’t GDPR fines can go up to an eye-watering €20 million or 4% of annual global revenue, whichever one is greater.
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE TRACK AT WIFI TRIBE?
When you subscribe to the WiFi Tribe newsletter or apply to join the community, we record and process the following information. We do not collect any personal data about you which is made available outside of our community. Here are the following scenarios where we collect your data:-
SUBSCRIPTION TO THE NEWSLETTER
When you subscribe, we collect the necessary information to keep you up to date about the latest happenings within our global coliving community. To do that we collect and process:
– your first name and your email address
WIFI TRIBE APPLICATIONS
As an applicant, we collect all the necessary information to make a decision based on our core values, whether or not we think the community is the right one for you, and also to find out if we should proceed with an interview or not. In order for us to do this we collect and process the following:
– Your personal information, name, contact information, email address, age group,
nationality, location
– Your remote work situation
– Application data, including responses
– Messages sent to and received from out Team
– All actions on the site via analytics tools
HOW DOES WIFI TRIBE USE THIS INFORMATION?
NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTIONS
We try to limit our use of that information as much as possible. That said, we perform the following actions:-
- Promotional activities: Newsletters and WiFi Tribe Updates
- Advertisements through Facebook Ads
Personal data is disclosed only to the WiFi Tribe Team. Personal information is not available to the public and it is not indexed by search engines such as Google.
WIFI TRIBE APPLICATIONS
Again we try to limit our use of that information as much as possible. That said, we perform the following actions.
- The production of internal Statistics
WHAT RIGHTS DO I HAVE AGAIN?
So just to remind you, GDPR gives you the right to the following:-
- Access
- Erasure
- Data Transfer
- Data correction
- To be informed how your data is used
- Restrict processing
- Stop Processing
To invoke any of these rights in reference to any dealings with WiFi Tribe, simply email hello@wifitribe.co and submit your request which we will action as soon as possible.
So there you have it – your whistlestop guide to the GDPR framework! If we are holding your data and you wish to discuss anything with us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
All the best,
WiFi Tribe
