We recently covered what personal data is, albeit in the form of a brief overview, and there is a lot more to it than can be covered in 500 or so words. Come to that, 1000 words. It’s involved. It’s complex. It can get you into severe trouble with the ICO. It can cost you subscribers to your email marketing list. To put it simply, you need to familiarise yourself with the requirements under the UK GDPR. Or else.

As with all things with the law, when discussing it, you need to use words like could, might and possibly. I’d avoid probably. Much too definitive.

Personal data includes information which could identify a person, both directly and indirectly. This definition is of concern to every email marketing company. The main purpose of our lists is to identify a person, so it seems against everything we stand for to advise anonymising the personal data we hold.

Why should you consider anonymising data? There are advantages. Firstly, and most significantly, it ceases to be subject to the UK GDPR. Secondly, the risks of damage from a data breach are reduced, although not eliminated. For an email marketing company, this could be a pivotal benefit. There have been suggestions that it makes your data less attractive to hackers and thieves, so they are unlikely to attack you. Maybe.

One potential advantage, although for some reason few companies exploit it, is that it can increase the trust of the subscribers to your email marketing list. It does this passively by your company having no security breaches, and also actively by you making it clear to your subscribers what you are doing with their data and why. Emphasise the increased security, showing that you, like them, take the security of their data seriously, unlike some others. Publicise it on the subscribing page, and maybe occasionally on an email marketing campaign. You could become a byword for peace of mind.

There are disadvantages to anonymisation. The data, rather obviously, is unlikely to be useful for personalisation, reducing our advantages over all other forms of marketing, so anonymising data should not be proceeded with without a considerable degree of planning. In fact, all data-driven decision-making will be affected. Much will depend on the size of your email marketing list when it comes to balancing benefits against cost.