Most websites today collect information from the users of the website for better user experience, accounts creation, product purchase, information transmission, updating the user. Apart from these there are many other reasons for collection of information by websites.Today we discus hear major 10 Essentials of a Website Privacy Policy.
Due to rising cases of data breach, data theft there is awareness amongst the users before providing their information to websites. When a website asks for details, I am sure you always have reluctance in providing the information, don’t you?
There are questions regarding the use of information or may be misuse of information provided. In order to assure transparency in use of information, websites have to publish a Privacy Policy informing it’s visitors about the possible uses of the information collected.
In order to make an effective privacy policy as per Indian Laws, our team at Registrations India has jotted down important sections that a Privacy Policy should have. We have enlisted 10 of the most essential sections or clauses of an effective Privacy Policy as per Indian Laws
1. What all personal information do you collect? When is the information collected?
The clause provides the details about the information collected by the website, like email addresses, location etc. Further, it is recommended that you let your visitor know as to when will the information be collected from the website. It could be on login, livechat, support ticket, purchase etc.
2. How do we use the information?
The importance of information collected needs to be notified to the visitor. There are number of instance when the information collected from visitors has been misused by websites. Since this information can be sold, the visitors require confirmation as to the limited use of the information.
3. How do we protect the information?
This is again a confirmation clause. Information leakage has become a common sight these days. With hackers making all efforts to steal the confidential data of organizations, data security becomes a major concern. Recently, the federal jury in Wisconsin has awarded USD 940 million to a firm against TATA Consultancy Services for information leakage. (source: Databreachtoday)
4. Do we use cookies? Why do we use cookies?
Cookies are small files that help identify a user’s preferences on your website. Most website including Google use cookies to keep track of your likes, dislikes etc. You must have seen the “recommended for you” phrase on many websites (youtube.com uses this), this is possible because such websites are using cookies. By the way most websites do use cookies for providing better user experience.
5. Relevance of cookies for our website
The user needs to be given a choice of not accepting cookies thereby rejecting the proposal of a website for identifying user preferences. But there could be certain features which mandatorily require use of cookies. This fact that the user will not be able to use certain features of the website if cookies are rejected could be let known to the user in case the user is planning to reject the cookies.
6. Electronic Newsletters
This section is for the purpose of mailing users. A user may prefer to opt-out later and the website confirms of not sending mails to such user.
7. Third party Links
A website may contain links to Government websites, bloggers, resources for information provided on the website. The third party website may or may not have information useful for that user. In any case your website cannot be held responsible for another website’s information if you don’t specifically want it. For example a third party website may be selling goods and the quality/price/delivery of goods is the responsibility of that third party website and not yours. You may inform the user that your website has no nexus with the third party websites.
8. Google Adwords
A website may be using Google adwords or google remarketing tools to check user’s preferences. In case a website is using these tools it has the option of providing this information to its users.
9. Adherence to Information Technology Act, CAN SPAM Act and other important Indian laws
Since a website uses information provided by the user, it needs to adhere to the laws of the land. In India we have the Information Technology Act, 2000 which lays down guidelines for usage of information in India
CAN SPAM Act provide protection against the commercial use of emails and rules regarding bulk mailing, the subject of emails, addressing, capturing of user information, images etc.
10. Contacting Us
This section needs to have the details for contacting the website like website Company name, address, contact email address, telephone etc.
I hope you have liked this article on ' 10 Essentials of a Website Privacy Policy', if yes please comment below. For more information you can visit www.registrationsindia.com