Understanding GDPR and Its Effect on Offline Targeted Advertising & Audience Analytics
What is GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation designed to protect the privacy and personal data of EU citizens. It applies to both online and offline data, making it essential for businesses to understand its implications.
Does GDPR Apply to Offline Data?
Yes. GDPR applies to any form of data that can identify an individual, including offline data collected through audience analytics.
What Data is Sensitive to GDPR?
Sensitive data under this regulation includes personal identifiers like:
- Name
- Home address
- Email address
- Identification card number
- Location data
- IP address
- Cookie ID
- Medical data
What is Offline Audience Analytics?
Offline audience analytics involves collecting and analyzing data related to customer behavior and demographics in a physical space, such as a retail store or a restaurant. This data can include metrics like age, gender, dwell time, and more. As you can see, this data is more general and can't be used alone to identify a specific person. Hence, it can only serve for statistical and marketing purposes.
How Can Collected Data Be Used?
This data can be used for various purposes, including real-time demographic targeting, marketing efficiency analysis, and store layout optimization. However, it's crucial to handle this data responsibly to ensure compliance with data protection laws.
What Else Should I Know Before Implementing Offline Audience Analytics?
Based on our experience, you should conduct a thorough risk assessment before implementing such analytics, consult legal advice, and ensure you will comply with legal regulations. Transparency with customers is also key.
As a software provider, we at DISPL help our clients and partners by providing existing legal assessments from European and US-based legal firms, sample materials with information on video analytics, and printed stickers that should be placed in stores to inform visitors.
How to Ensure Compliance
DISPL uses advanced algorithms to process data "at the edge" (on the device), ensuring no images or videos are recorded or sent elsewhere. This maintains the anonymity and non-personality of collected data, making it compliant with GDPR. This statement is supported by independent analyses conducted by several legal firms in different countries. We are ready to provide such documents on demand.
Case Study: Prestigio Plaza
To understand how to ensure compliance in real-world scenarios, let's look at our project with Prestigio Plaza. They have implemented a whole specter of audience analytics solutions and conducted a detailed legal analysis of our software. After the implementation, to inform customers, they placed a legal notice at the entrance zone with a QR code leading to a page explaining the purposes and means of video analytics.
Conclusion
Understanding data protection laws is crucial for offline targeted advertising and audience analytics. Ensuring compliance allows businesses to leverage the power of data analytics responsibly.
Further Reading
To learn more about GDPR-compliant offline audience analytics, visit DISPL Visitor Insights or book a demo to speak with our experts.
