Making Customer Privacy Your Company’s Priority
As a business owner, you come into contact with customers – and customer information – on a daily basis. Whether you do business online or in person and depending upon your business’s structure, you may have access to limitless information relating to credit card or even bank account information, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, passwords and more.
While this information is critical for business operations, some of it’s also highly confidential, requiring special procedures for protection – both for your customers and your business. Because of this, creating a sound privacy policy that clearly outlines how your business protects consumer information is important.
Things to consider while creating a privacy policy for your business include:
Time Limits and Constraints
Decide up front how long you will keep customer records and personal information. The longer you hold onto this information, the more at risk you are for a customer information breach. While your security measures may be sound, it’s important to hold information for no longer than absolutely necessary.
Make it Your Own
It’s easy to find generic privacy policies online that require filling in a few blanks or simply copying data from another company’s policy. This is dangerous for your business. No business is alike, and as such, no privacy policy should be identical to another. If a business does use another company’s policy, it may come under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission or other law enforcement groups.
Focus On Clarity
Privacy policies don’t have to be lengthy and complicated. You want your customers to be able to understand your privacy policy – an open relationship is the foundation for building trust. Simply outline which information your company collects, whether it’s shared with other companies and other information that consumers need to know.
Make it Easy to Find
Your privacy policy should be easy to find. This means including a link from your homepage – if you do business online – and keeping a policy in your physical location, with copies for customers is critical.
Work with an Expert
Privacy is not to be taken lightly. Your business could be held liable for any breaches that could occur or any misunderstandings that take place. To prevent this, consider working with an experienced business law expert, like Attorney Michael Hynum with Hynum Law. Contact us today to set up a consultation – we look forward to working with you.