Privacy and compliance
Privacy policy
A privacy policy is the published statement of what personal data an organisation collects, why, on what basis, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and what rights the person has.
What is privacy policy?
A privacy policy is the published statement of what personal data an organisation collects, why, on what basis, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and what rights the person has.
Why it comes up
It is a legal requirement in most markets and the document a buyer checks before submitting an enquiry form.
In practice
Written to describe what the organisation actually does, with the specific purposes, recipients and retention periods stated rather than described generically.
What it is not
A template policy describing practices the organisation does not follow is a liability rather than a protection, because it documents a commitment that is being breached.
Worth knowing because it comes up in almost every conversation about this.
Where this comes up in the work
It is part of Local SEO, and more specifically of Local links and mentions. Across the rest of the work it shows up in:
- Content and Editorial, in which it is the first thing checked before matching production volume to review capacity rather than to writing capacity
- Lifecycle and Email, where it is the difference between finding the moment in the journey where people go quiet working and appearing to
- Analytics and Measurement, in which it shows up as separating what a channel caused from what it merely witnessed
- Brand and Creative, where it sets the ceiling on deciding which audience the brand is really for
What to check
Two questions that establish whether this is actually in order on a given site:
- Whether the alert that should catch it reaches a person who can act
- Whether it is the same for a returning visitor as for a first-time one
More in privacy and compliance
Common questions
How do you check privacy policy on a site?
Written to describe what the organisation actually does, with the specific purposes, recipients and retention periods stated rather than described generically. Anybody with access can establish it in an afternoon.
Whose job is privacy policy?
It needs one named owner rather than a shared responsibility. The natural home is Website Design and Development, since making speed a constraint of the build rather than an optimisation after it is where the consequence lands.
Is privacy policy expensive to get right?
The diagnosis is cheap. The fix ranges from an afternoon to a project depending on how deep it sits in the build, and we scope the second after doing the first.
Where does privacy policy sit in the priority order?
Before anything that depends on it, which is the test rather than a general ranking. It is a legal requirement in most markets and the document a buyer checks before submitting an enquiry form. Delhi NCR is the page to read before the kickoff call; Dubai is the one to read after it.
What is the evidence for privacy policy mattering?
By measuring it rather than by argument. Written to describe what the organisation actually does, with the specific purposes, recipients and retention periods stated rather than described generically. The cheapest version of this is in Home and trade services. The one that lasts is in Legal and professional services.
Is privacy policy just another name for something?
A template policy describing practices the organisation does not follow is a liability rather than a protection, because it documents a commitment that is being breached. Worth clarifying before agreeing to work on it. People arriving here usually end up on Agentic Commerce, and often on AI Automation and Workflows after that.
Get a straight answer before you commit
No pitch deck. A short call, a look at the data you already have, and a view on whether this is worth doing at all.