5/25/2018 Update

Understanding General Data Protection Regulation

What is the GDPR?

GDPR is short for the General Data Protection Regulation that goes into effect on May 25, 2018. It was passed by the European Parliament to create a harmonized data privacy law across member states of the European Union (EU). Its purpose is to support privacy as a fundamental human right and therefore give EU residents rights over how their personal data is processed or otherwise used.

What is considered personal data?

The GDPR defines personal data as '... any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, or online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person'.

Additionally, the GDPR notes that online identifiers can constitute personal data. The GDPR explains, '... natural persons may be identified with online identifiers which are provided by:

• Devices
• Applications
• Tools
• Protocols, such as IP (Internet Protocol) addresses
• Cookie identifiers (and similar web tracking technologies)
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags (the Internet of Things)

How does this affect me?

Individuals, companies or businesses providing services to EU residents need to comply with this law. To the extent you collect EU residents' personal data (including the collection, processing, storage or transmittal of such data), GDPR requires you to comply with its terms by May 25, 2018. If you are an EU resident, this law will apply to your personal data in your Account Support account.

The Account Support Privacy Policy explains what we collect and how we handle your personal data. This statement includes many examples of how personal data may be used by Account Support. We suggest that you take the time to understand how this applies to you.

What rights does the GDPR provide to EU residents?

The rights of an EU resident under the GDPR, and how you can exercise those rights with respect to Account Support, are:

• Right of access: You, or your customer, can ask us what personal data is being processed (used), why and where.
• Right to rectification: If you, or your customer, want to correct, revise or remove any of the data we retain on you - as explained in our Privacy Policy - you may do so at any time.
• Right to be forgotten: If you, or your customer, need to cancel your Account Support account at any time, we will permanently remove your account and all information associated with it.
• Right to restrict processing: If you, or your customer, believe your personal data is inaccurate or collected unlawfully, you may request limited use of your personal data.
• Right of portability: We provide you with the ability to move any of your account data to a third party at any time.
• Right to object: If you, or your customer, decide that you no longer wish to allow your data to be included in our analytics or for us to provide personalized (targeted) marketing content at any time, you may contact us to request removal of this data.

Account Support will provide the necessary mechanism to comply with requests from you, and support you in fulfilling GDPR requests from your customers.

What is Account Support doing to comply with the GDPR?

Account Support is committed to achieving compliance with the GDPR by May 25, 2018. This will include work "behind the scenes," such as reviewing and updating (as necessary) our agreements, policies, internal processes, features and templates to assure our compliance.  

What do I need to do differently to be compliant with the GDPR?

There are two parties that have accountability for dealing with personal data, the "controller" and the "processor."  The "controller" defines the means and purpose of the use of personal data and the "processor" only acts on the behalf of what the "controller" has instructed and processes personal data for them.  

Please understand that both you and Account Support  have obligations and requirements for GDPR compliance.

As an EU consumer of Account Support services?

Usually, Account Support is a controller in relation to the personal data that you provide to us as a customer. Also, from May 25th, we will not publish the personal data of domain name registrants located in the EU in the WHOIS. This is to ensure our WHOIS output is compliant with the GDPR.

However, access to personal data of domain name registrants may be granted when such access is necessary for technical reasons such as for the facilitation of transfers, or for law enforcement when it is legally entitled to such access.

As a business owner that may have EU customer data?

In certain circumstances, you are acting as the controller, for example, when you decide what information from your contacts or subscribers is uploaded or transferred into your Account Support account. This means you will have some additional obligations around such things as data subject rights. We urge you to understand this and seek legal advice where you think necessary.

Our Terms of Service require you to lawfully obtain and process all personal data appropriately. You will need to continue to do this to be compliant with the GDPR.