Help CenterMaking LiveChat GDPR compliant is our priority, that is why we prepared this short article to help you make your chat window GDPR compliant. Remember that we're in this together!
- Processing your customers' data
- The right to access your data
- The right to be forgotten
- Signing a DPA
- What's next?
Processing your customers' data
With GDPR, you are obliged to inform your customers that you and/or a third-party processor will gather their personal data. There are two ways to go about it:
1) If you run an e-commerce store where your customers can make a purchase, you can modify the agreement between you and your customer so that it will include the information about the data processing that occurs during a chat.
2) If you are not using LiveChat for sales purposes, you should still inform your website visitors that you gather and process their data during a chat. You can use our pre-chat survey feature to do just that. Below we provide instructions on how to use the pre-chat survey to make your chat widget GDPR compliant, as well as ready-made examples of data protection consents.
Note that in either case, you need to make sure that the agreement and/or the consent will match your business agenda, based on what data you process, for what purpose and for how long you keep it. Also, remember that the data protection consents and clauses provided in this article are to be considered as general examples.
To include the data processing consent in your pre-chat survey, log in to the LiveChat app, go to Settings>Chat surveys and forms>Pre-chat survey. You can read more about setting up chat surveys here.
1) Click on Add element.
2) Choose Multiple choice list from the drop-down menu.
3) As the Label, paste your consent agreement. If you use one provided below, make sure you edit it to include your company details!
4) Type ‘I agree’ as Choice #1.
5) Delete Choice #2.
6) Don’t forget to mark the field as Required.
7) Click on Save changes to apply your data processing consent to the pre-chat survey.
You can also link to your full privacy policy in the pre-chat survey. Use the text editor in the input fields to create a clickable link. See this article for more details.
Please note that when you invite customers to chat manually, the pre-chat survey will not be displayed even if it is enabled.
And here are the ready-made examples of data protection consents and clauses that we've prepared for you:
1) [Data controller notice] I understand/acknowledge that the controller of my personal data is [your company name] with its registered office in [your business address]. I understand/acknowledge that my personal data shall be processed and transmitted in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
2) [Data controller notice] I understand/acknowledge that the controller of my personal data is [your company name] with its registered office in [your business address]. I understand/acknowledge that my personal data shall be processed and transmitted in accordance with the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (The General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR).
3) [Data processing consent, purpose, retention period, revocation] I agree for my personal data, provided via chat, to be processed by [your company name] for the purposes of providing support via chat. I agree for my personal data to be processed for the time [e.g. needed to carry out the service]. I understand that the consent may be revoked by sending an email at: [your business email/your data protection officer’s email].
4) [Data processing consent, purpose, retention period] I agree for my personal data, provided via chat, to be processed by [your company name], for the purpose of [specify the purpose of the processing], for the time of [specify the time of processing].
5) [The data subject’s rights notice] I acknowledge that I have been informed about the rights I have, in particular the right to access my personal data, to rectify and delete them, the right to limit the processing, transferring, and to demand the temporary or permanent suspension of the processing, as well as withdrawal of consent for processing and filing a complaint to the supervisory body.
6) [Consent for entrusting the data] I agree to transfer my personal data by the data controller to affiliated companies and other entities whose services are used by the data controller while doing business.
The right to access your data
With GDPR it is now much easier for your customers to access all of their data gathered in various services – LiveChat included. If a customer would like to receive the transcript of a conversation and/or a ticket that they created with the use of your LiveChat, you can provide it for them with just a few easy steps. To do that, go to the Archives section of your LiveChat app and pick the desired conversation.
1) Find the desired chat on the list of chats in the Archives.
2) Click on the ellipsis menu in the top right corner.
3) Click on Send transcript to email.
4) In the pop-up, enter the customer’s email address (if the customer provided their email address in the pre-chat survey, the email field will be pre-populated).
5) Click on Send transcript.
When it comes to tickets, each of them is automatically forwarded to your customer's email. However, if your customer requests that you send it again, you can do it from the Tickets section of your LiveChat app.
1) Go to the Tickets section.
2) Find the ticket in question.
3) Click on the ticket to open it.
4) To resend the ticket, simply write a new message and click Send. The whole ticket, i.e. all the messages, will be resent to the customer.
5) If you need to send it to another email address, click on +Add more people.
6) In the pop-up, enter the new email address and click on Save.
7) Write a new message and click on Send. The whole ticket, i.e. all the messages, will be sent to the new email address (see step 4).
But that's not all: the same rule applies to you! If you'd like to retrieve the chats that you had with our support team, you can simply send us an email at support@livechatinc.com, asking to retrieve all your data that we gathered at LiveChat.
Please make sure to send the information retrieval request from the email address you use to log in to the LiveChat app. We will send a verification code to the email address associated with your LiveChat account, and will send over the information after receiving the code back from you.
The right to be forgotten
Another one of GDPR's regulations is the right to be forgotten. At LiveChat, we can delete all of your personal data, based on your request sent to our support@livechatinc.com email address. But what about your own customers?
Your customer may want to request the deletion of a chat and/or a ticket, based on various reasons like personal information being shared via chat. We have an internal procedure that allows you to remove the mentioned conversation or ticket from your LiveChat license. What's more, we'll take care of the hard part for you.
All you have to do is tag the chat(s) or ticket(s) that you would like us to delete. You can create a separate tag, e.g. Delete, and use it to tag the chats you would like us to delete for you.
Not using tags at LiveChat or not entirely sure how to create a new one? Click here to learn more!
After tagging the conversation(s) and/or ticket(s), send us an email at support@livechatinc.com, to let us know that the transcripts/chats marked with the specified tag are to be removed.
Please make sure to send the deletion request from the email address you use to log in to the LiveChat app. We will send a verification code to the email address associated with your LiveChat account, and will delete the transcripts and/or tickets as soon as we the code back from you.
After receiving an email, we will remove all of the tagged conversations and/or tickets as soon as possible. Also, after fulfilling your request, one of our Support Heroes will send you an email confirmation that the process has been taken care of. Needles to say, this can also be handled on chat!
Signing a DPA
When you sign up for a subscription with LiveChat, the processing of your personal data and information, such as geo-location or the use of cookies, is regulated by our Privacy Policy document. Our Privacy Policy provides you will all the necessary information on how your personal data are being processed and what information exactly we process at LiveChat.
However, if you are located in the EU or your country's law requires it from you, you can sign a Data Processing Agreement with us. To do that, click here to review and sign our official Data Processing Agreement. Also, if you have any further questions regarding our DPA, you can reach out to us via our official email: dpa@livechatinc.com.
Please note that if your company would like to modify our standard DPA based on your business's agenda, you will need to move to our Enterprise plan. To check what additional features you get, click here.
What's next?
If you'd like to learn more about what steps we have taken to become GDPR compliant, visit our official General Data Protection guide, as well as our GDPR FAQs. And as usual, when in doubt just start a chat with us! Our Support Heroes are available 24/7, and they will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have!