North American photographers and stock agencies may have heard about the new European Union GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law that goes into effect on May 25, 2018, but figured “that’s something happening in the EU that I don’t have to worry about.”
Well, maybe not! If you sell pictures in Europe, try to market your services in Europe, or maintain any type of database of European customers, or potential customer, you may want to read up on what this law requires.
Nancy Wolff, Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) Counsel, has prepared a
detailed explanation of what this law does and what you need to be concerned about in the way of protecting personal data.
This regulation strengthens the privacy rights of individuals living in the European Union (not only E.U. citizens) and applies to anyone who does business with those persons, even if that simply means collecting data for marketing purposes.
Shutterstock has also prepared a
long document on what it will be doing to protect “Personal Information” (which they define as any information that identifies or can be used to identify, contact, or locate the person to whom such information pertains). All information that Shutterstock collects and maintain will be subject to this Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time.
In addition Shutterstock provides a link entitled "Updating Your Personal Information and Privacy Preferences." where contributors, or people who might be named in a Shutterstock caption, can
update their personal information.
Upon request Shutterstock will also provide anyone with information about whether they hold, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information. To request this information please contact us at
cevinpl@fuhggrefgbpx.pbz.
Finally, another useful information source on GDPR is supplied by the Information Commissioners Office in the UK and can be found here (
https://ico.org.uk/media/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf )