Customer data protection and privacy is a topic that has been on the rise over the last couple of years. In 2018, the European Union took a big step towards privacy and protection by launching GDPR. what is GDPR? GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a regulation in European Union law on data privacy and protection for all individuals within the EU and the European Economic Area. Even more recently, the state of California started rolling out its own version called the The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA). With protection measures increasing all over the global, and Salesforce providing a home for so much data, it might be time to get your data in line. Salesforce has in turn provided a response, by rolling out a new standard object titled “Individual”.
The Individual object’s intended purpose to house a person’s data preferences, and detail out how a person would like to have their data used, stored, and shared. The Individual object has a lookup relationship with both the Lead and Contact objects. Once enabled, you can relate the Lead/Contact record with their corresponding Individual record.
Here is a rundown of some of the fields that come standard with the Individual object-
Checkboxes:
· Don’t Market, Don’t Process, Don’t Profile, Don’t Track
· Block Geolocation Tracking
· Export Individual’s Data
· Ok to Store PII Data Elsewhere (PII = Personally Identifiable Information), also known as data transfer.
· Forget this Individual
Age:
· Birthdate/Individual’s Age; to calculate eligibility for data protection as a minor (child). There are two picklist options: 13 or Older, and 16 or Older.
Change Tracking:
· Created by/Date
· Modified by/Date
While the Individual object is a great start, and helps provide some controls in place around your data – the object itself is fairly basic in nature. To really make great strides towards adhering to GDPR guidelines, your business will want to implement processes to take responsibility of your data. Whether working internally or working with a Salesforce partner – more work is to be done to develop a solution that you and your customers can trust.