Businesses often disclose their customers’ personal information to marketers without consent, including their age, gender, likes, hobbies, place of education, etc.
Marketers then use this data to display targeted ads to customers.
While this seems harmless, privacy rules like the CCPA and GDPR were implemented because personal information about an individual is traded like a commodity.
The GDPR now requires organizations to obtain customers’ consent before selling personal data.
However, the CCPA mandates that businesses give customers a choice to refuse the selling of their personal information by putting up a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” button.
These laws must be strictly complied with, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Failing to do so can have significant repercussions.
This was an explicit breach of Facebook users’ consent that was carried out without their knowledge, and a heavy fine had to be paid.
For this reason, a robust consent management system is crucial for any business planning to process customer data. It’s not as simple as it seems, though.
This article will discuss a consent management platform, its purpose, benefits, how to implement it in your business, and many more.
Keep reading to know how to prepare any business to comply with existing and upcoming data privacy regulations.
What is a consent management platform?
Websites that collect users’ consent to process their data using cookies and trackers on the domain do so via a consent management platform, or “CMP.”
Visitors are informed via a CMP about the types of information collected and for what purpose.
They handle requests from visitors to access and delete the data the website collects on them and request to alter the consent data the website has collected.
Websites must use this platform to comply with EU data-collection standards.
A consent management Program (CMP) streamlines, simplifies, and speeds up consent processes, which is why it is so helpful.
Purpose of consent management platform
Although an effective CMP facilitates an organization’s regulatory compliance, it’s essential to understand that different businesses employ distinct approaches and, thus, have different views regarding consent.
The majority of businesses will, therefore, have different needs from others in the market regarding their CMP.
Because of this, numerous CMP software options in the market address businesses’ diverse and unique demands.
There may be variations in the different solutions’ usability, cost, features, and overall support.
Still, the majority of CMP solutions are likely to operate similarly.
The key features or purposes of a consent management platform are listed below.
- Consent collection: A CMP’s primary purpose is to make it easier to obtain consent from users. With a CMP, you can set up a cookie banner to obtain legitimate user consent following legal requirements. This consent can include granular consent and the ability to withdraw consent.
- Consent Management: A CMP will continuously monitor and update your site’s cookie list to ensure compliance and automatically detect and block cookies before user consent.
- Consent signals: Consent preferences are recorded by a CMP and shared with vendors and third parties that process data, such as your Google Analytics and advertising agencies.
- Proof of consent: Once the consent has been collected, CMP stores it in a central repository. This will be used in regulatory audits as evidence of compliance.
Benefits of a consent management platform
Benefits of a consent management platform include:
Employing a consent management platform has many benefits, and the following are some of the most crucial ones to consider.
Compliance with Data privacy regulations
As we’ve previously discussed, one of the key benefits of employing a consent management platform is improving your compliance with data protection regulations.
By simplifying and automating the consent management process, you can ensure that your company is always up to date with the latest changes and that you aren’t accidentally violating laws or regulations.
Associating a User’s Identity with Their Consent
Employing a consent management platform can help associate a user’s identity with their consent.
This means you can be assured that the individual using your website or product is the same individual who consented.
This is crucial to ensure that your company only collects and uses customer data from people who have permitted you to do so.
Improved user experience
A consent management platform can also help enhance the user experience.
Increase the likelihood that users genuinely grant their consent by simplifying the consent management process and helping them better understand.
This is a huge benefit for both your customers and your company.
Greater control over data
Using a consent management platform also offers you more control over the data.
Having a platform in place assures you that you are only collecting and using the data you require and that you can remove it if a user withdraws their consent.
You can feel more at ease knowing that your data is always in your control and that you can help prevent any potential privacy violations.
Increased efficiency
A consent management platform can also help your processes run more smoothly, which is a huge benefit.
You may free up your team’s time to work on other tasks by centralizing and automating processes and making it more straightforward for everyone to find the required information.
Enhanced customer relationships
By ensuring that you’re constantly managing their data in a way that complies with their desires, a consent management platform can help you establish a positive relationship with your customers.
It can convey a message of responsibility and accountability, which customers are starting to value more and more.
Implementing a consent management platform
Now that you know what a consent management platform is, what it does, and that it brings multiple benefits to your company.
You must be in a position where you must be wondering how to implement a consent management platform in your company. Let’s find out.
- Add the CMP code to your website:
This could be as simple as one line of code or as complex as several, with adjustments required for your unique configuration.
- Set up the consent management settings according to the applicable laws:
The criteria and regulations for obtaining user consent vary by region.
To obtain consent from users in the EU, you might need to ask them to do anything (such as click a button) to indicate whether they agree to be tracked by all trackers, only certain ones or none.
Your CMP must be aware of the regions in which you conduct business, the consent management settings that are applicable there, and whether you wish a higher degree of compliance (e.g., the use of EU consent requirements in US regions).
- Set up tracker blocking:
Data privacy laws do not treat all data trackers equally.
Some cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of your website and cannot be blocked; others only improve user experience, and others track user activity across several websites.
To restrict or allow trackers according to the user’s preferences, CMPs need to know which trackers fall into which categories.
- Customize:
You want your cookie banner to represent your brand, not look like everyone else!
To provide brands control over the overall look and feel of their cookie banners, CMPs offer a variety of customizations.
It’s important to remember that having too much customization could be wrong because doing so increases the risk of violating specific data privacy laws.
Your CMP should allow you to personalize your banner while protecting you from accidentally breaking the rules.
Where does the CMP collect the consent from?
As discussed above, a CMP can only function once the user’s consent has been obtained.
This consent is obtained through cookies; on a user’s visit to a website, a cookie banner appears asking for the user’s consent to collect and manage his data, automatically block third-party cookies, and retain a record of the user’s consent.
What is consent management in healthcare?
Consent management and patient data privacy should be the primary design factors when permitting patient data access via healthcare APIs to ensure unidentified systems do not exploit patient-protected health information.
The process and system for collecting and managing track of patient consent for using and sharing patient-protected health information (PHI) is known as consent management in the healthcare industry.
Additionally, it allows patients to customize their privacy settings, allowing them to decide who gets access to their protected health information (PHI) and under what circumstances.
It makes creating, managing, and enforcing dynamic privacy directives for consumers, organizations, and jurisdictions easier.
Four major types of consent in the healthcare industry
Getting patients’ consent is an important ethical and regulatory aspect of the healthcare industry.
Consent comes in various forms, each with a unique purpose.
In the healthcare industry, consent is of 4 major forms:
Informed Consent
To obtain informed consent, healthcare professionals must give patients comprehensive information about a planned medical intervention, including its risks, benefits, alternatives, and repercussions.
The patient must understand all the information before agreeing to or declining the treatment.
For procedures including surgeries, medical treatments, and clinical trial participation, informed consent is required.
Implied Consent
Implicit consent is presumed based on the patient’s behavior or other circumstances.
It is generally used in emergencies where the patient cannot give informed consent and immediate medical attention is required.
For example, healthcare professionals may presume implicit consent to carry out life-saving procedures if a patient is unconscious or unable to communicate.
Express Consent
The patient’s straightforward and explicit consent to a particular medical intervention or operation is known as express consent.
Depending on the treatment’s nature and the healthcare facility’s policies, it may be verbal or written.
Written consent is often preferred for complicated or high-risk procedures to record the patient’s understanding and acceptance.
Minor’s Consent and Parental Consent
Healthcare professionals often request both the minors and their parents’ consent in the case of minors.
The parents or legal guardians must consent before their minor kid can receive medical care.
Getting the child’s consent or acknowledgment when they are old enough to understand the nature of the treatment is another aspect of getting the minor’s consent.
The minimum age at which a minor can consent varies in different regulations.
It’s crucial to remember that consent is a continuous process, and patients can withdraw it anytime.
Healthcare professionals must protect patient autonomy and ensure that patients have sufficient information before making decisions on their medical care.
Furthermore, the conditions for getting consent could change depending on regional laws and regulations.
Privacy management vs. Consent management
The comprehensive topic of data protection consists of two related concepts: consent management and privacy management; however, they focus on different aspects of handling personal information.
While consent management is a specific component of privacy management that deals with explicit consent obtained from individuals for processing their data, privacy management is a broader concept, including the overall framework and practices an organization adopts to protect privacy.
Consent is necessary but not the sole component of privacy management.
Other privacy management components include data security, transparency, and legal compliance.
Both concepts are essential to developing an organization-wide privacy-centric strategy for managing personal data.
Let’s look at the difference between both concepts on the below-mentioned three bases:
Meaning
Privacy management: The broad plans, directives, and procedures businesses implement to ensure peoples’ privacy rights at every stage of personal data processing are collectively called privacy management.
Consent management: Consent management aims to get, manage, and record individuals’ consent and personal information.
- Scope
Privacy management: Data governance, risk assessments, data protection policies, privacy impact assessments, and compliance with relevant privacy laws and regulations are just a few of the privacy management tasks.
Consent Management: It involves the procedures and frameworks to get individuals’ consent before processing their data for particular objectives.
Consent management also consists of ways for people to withdraw their consent at any time or modify it.
- Objectives
Privacy management: The main objective of privacy management is to establish a thorough framework that protects people’s right to privacy and ensures that an organization processes data legally, fairly, and transparently.
Consent management: Giving people more control over their data is the primary goal of consent management.
It ensures that people can exercise their right to withdraw consent at any time and that organizations only process data when people have voluntarily and deliberately provided their consent.
Conclusion
One of the most, if not the most, significant global data privacy requirements is consent.
Using manual techniques to comply with this law is time-consuming, expensive, and risky.
Your company can benefit from implementing the PrivacyPillar framework in several ways.
It is best to invest in automation early in the compliance process and prepare your company for global data privacy laws, existing and future, given the increased frequency and severity of enforcement relating to consent violations.
