3 Privacy Policy Essentials

Doing business today is growing ever more complex. Potential customers connect to your brand from a multitude of devices: smartphones, tablets, pc’s and a range of applications: browsers, Facebook, Pintrest, and LinkedIn, to name a few. To deliver a consistently personal and optimized experience often requires tracking technology and partnerships with third parties to ensure that you are correctly identifying these individuals and capturing accurate information. As the complexity of your online business presence grows, it becomes more difficult to be transparent with consumers about how you collect and use their data. Your privacy policy and privacy notices need to effectively communicate these data practices to potential customers, or you risk losing brand trust.

A privacy policy that tackles the complexity of today’s online presence incorporates these privacy policy essentials: transparency, choice, and accountability.

Transparency

Journalists, concerned citizens, and government agencies are scouring apps and websites, looking for privacy violations, both real and potential. Don’t let someone else control the conversation with a damaging exposé on how you collect and use sensitive data. Let your privacy policy do the talking and leave no stone unturned in your quest to be transparent. Here’s what you need to cover:

•	Collection and use of personal information

•	Sharing of information with third parties.

•	Tracking and whether you allow third parties to do so

•	Whether you and/or your partners target ads to your users

•	How users can access, update and delete their information

'''Choice '''

The various privacy choices you offer your customers should be properly explained in your privacy policy. If you allow customers to opt-out of behavioral advertising, for example, include a link to the opt-out mechanism in your privacy policy. Even better, embed the mechanisms itself if possible. By incorporating privacy choices into your privacy policy you can make it a more dynamic, responsive form of transparency for your customers. It’s an opportunity to not only tell them what you’re doing with their data, but to also show them exactly how they can exercise control and implement their privacy preferences.

'''Accountability '''

If you don’t hold yourself accountable to implement good privacy practices someone else might take up the challenge. Not only does your written policy have to be consistent with your actual practice, you need to give consumers an easy way to resolve privacy issues. Third-party privacy dispute resolution, for example, is a requirement for U.S. companies that do business in the EU and want to comply with EU privacy law. At the end of the day, using a reputable third-party to hold your business accountable to its privacy promises can be the most cost-effective, efficient way to protect your business, your customers, and your brand.