The Covid-19 situation presented a major threat to many businesses and individuals in the UK and globally. In the UK lockdown led to the closure of many businesses and the hospitality sector has been seriously affected. As of tomorrow (18th September) there will be new measures in place that have been designed to help us to return to a more normal way of life.
The Government has confirmed that pubs, restaurants and cafes will be required to collect their customer’s contact details and store this information for 21 days in accordance with the data law and shared with NHS Test and Trace if requested, in the event of a venue being identified as the location of a potential outbreak. The businesses will be required to cooperate and should they fail to comply there will be fixed penalties in place.
The problem
Many customers may feel that they don’t want to leave their name, phone number, email or address etc in a pub, restaurant or café. They may be asking:
- Will my information be shared with other companies?
- Will my personal information be safe and stored securely?
- What if my contact details are overseen by another customer who is completing a form afterwards?
- Can I refuse to provide my personal information?
The answer is that you are legally required to provide your personal information should you visit one of the places in mind and those businesses have to comply with GDPR regulations. In other words, if businesses wish to collect your personal information they are responsible for making sure it is done in a safe and secure manner so that you don’t have to worry about any of the above.
The solution
Businesses need a system that securely collects, stores and analyses people’s data in real time, and customer privacy must be protected at all times. Perhaps it is too much and too soon to ask hospitality businesses to implement sophisticated technology they never had to use before? Perhaps such technology should be implemented systematically rather than too rapidly? I checked with our Web Support Specialist, Sophie who confirmed that fortunately there are some free technologies that can prove to be a good option for the manual data collection and Google Forms is one of those options.
Sophie then added that Google Forms with a Google contact form template that is already available can be set up very quickly. The form is secure, and responses can only be accessed by the account that created the form. With some minor tweaks you can have a fully secure and comprehensive system which is fully GDPR compliant.
Simply share the link to your form with customers for them to complete on their own device without needing a Google account of their own.
Here is an example form created on the Octagon account in minutes https://forms.gle/sdAth3kKodHyCAkS6
There are other comprehensive solutions available to you and should you have any questions about these solutions or how to implement technology that will allow you to collect and store your customers data in a safe and secure manner contact me directly and I will be able to assist you further. We have a team of professionals who have years of experience in data privacy and security. My email address is kamila@octagontech.com or call me on 01522 797520.
Kamila
General Manager
Update:
We can now de the same thing using Microsoft 365 for Business which is even better for your security and privacy.
Advice from the ICO:
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We used an article from the Australian edition of The Conversation by Mahmoud Elkhodr, Lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies, CQ University Australia, as inspiration for this article:
