Data Privacy Compliance Tutorials

In order to help Telerivet users meet the compliance requirements of data protection laws such as the European Union’s GDPR and the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act, this tutorial explains how you can use Telerivet for the following: 

• Informing your audience of the various data privacy acts and your privacy policies
• Permanently removing any contact from your Telerivet account
• Notifying your contacts of the information you collected about them
• Allowing new or existing contacts to provide opt-in consent for you to send messages or process their data, and removing contacts that do not opt-in
• Correcting an error in your contact’s information
• Notifying your staff of data privacy queries

Informing your audience of the data privacy acts and your privacy policies
Telerivet can help you meet the compliance requirements of notifying customers of your privacy policies and their rights under the data protection laws.  To do so, simply follow the steps enumerated below:
 
If you have not previously created a group that includes the relevant contacts, you can create a group containing all contacts as follows:

1. Click the “Contacts” link located on the left sidebar,
2. Click “Add Group”,
3. Choose a group name, such as “All”,
4. Check the box to Add contacts in the current filter,
5. Click “Save”. 

To notify your customers, you can send an SMS broadcast:

1. Click “Messages” located on the left sidebar,
2. Click “New Message” located on the top right corner,
3. Select the From number that will send the broadcast,
4. In the “To” field, choose the group, or combination of groups, that would include all customers whose contact information you store. 
5. Write your message content, for example:
   • “In accordance with the Philippines Data Privacy Act, we would like to inform you of the new privacy policies. …..”
   • “In accordance with the European Union’s GDPR, we would like to inform you of the new privacy policies. …”
6. Click “Send”.

Permanently removing any contact from your Telerivet account
If a contact requests that you erase their personal data or objects to your processing of their personal information, you can delete from your contact’s database as follows:

1. Click “Contacts” in the left sidebar
2. Enter the contact’s name or phone number in the search field
3. Click the checkbox to select the contact
4. Click “Actions”
5. Click “Delete contacts”,
6. Click “Yes, Delete” to permanently remove the Contact(s) and delete their personal data from your Telerivet account.

Note that deleting a contact does not automatically delete messages previously sent or received by that contact. You can delete a contact’s messages as follows: 

1. Click “Messages” in the left sidebar
2. Enter the contact’s name or phone number in the search field
3. Click the checkbox at the top left to select all messages matching the search query. If there is more than 1 page of messages, click “Select all XXXX messages”.
4. Click “Actions”
5. Click “Delete messages”
6. Click “OK” to permanently remove the contact’s messages from your Telerivet account.

 
Notifying your contacts of the information you have collected on them
In order to comply with privacy legislation, individual contacts must be able to request the information you have stored about them.  If your Telerivet account is configured to both send and receive SMS, Telerivet makes it easy to automate these information requests. 
 
How to Set Up an Information Request Auto-Reply:

1. Click the “Services” link located on the sidebar,
2. Click the “Add New Service” button located on the top right,
3. Click “Auto-Reply”,
4. Then click “When a text message is received with a particular keyword”.
5. Enter “Customer Information Request,” in the Service Name field. 
6. In the first Keyword field, enter something unique, such as “CustInfoReq”,
7. Then click the red X next to the second Keyword field. 
8. In the Auto-Reply content box, you may type the following message as an example: “Hi [[contact.name]], you have submitted: [[contact.phone_number]]…”.
9. To add the variables, click “Insert variable”,
10. Then click the + sign to expand “contact…”,
11. Then click each of the links for “contact.vars.XXXX”, in succession in order to convey all information you store for contacts in your Auto-Reply message.
12. Then click “Done”. 

Correcting an error in your contact’s information
Customers are generally granted the right to correct errors in their personal information.  If a user sends a request to correct an error in their personal information, your representative can correct the customer’s contact information as follows:

1. Click “Contacts”,
2. Search for the customer’s phone number,
3. Click the link in the Name column of their contact row,
4. Make the appropriate corrections to their contact information,
5. Click “Save”.

Obtaining opt-in consent from new contacts
In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, Data Privacy Act in the Philippines, and so forth, Telerivet makes it easy to obtain opt-in consent from contacts by setting up a subscription service:

1. Click “Services” located on the left sidebar,
2. Click the “Add New Service” button located on the top right,
3. Click “Subscription”,
4. Under “Service Name”, enter “Data Privacy Compliant Subscription”,
5. Choose the key words, such as “Join” or “Subscribe”, that customers will use to indicate consent to be messaged.  You can also customize the Auto-Reply text that customers will receive when they subscribe or unsubscribe.
6. Click “Done”.

 
Obtaining opt-in consent from existing contacts
If you already have an existing database of contacts that you need to get consent to continue messaging, you can create a poll to ask them to opt-in:

1. Click “Services”,
2. Click “Add New Service”,
3. Click “Poll”.
4. Under the Service Name, enter “Subscription Poll”, or similar.
5. In the first Question field, you may type the following sample message: “Hi, [[contact.name.word1]] we wanted to remind you to reply SUBSCRIBE to continue receiving messages from us.You can reply STOP to prevent future messages.”
6. Next to “if response has word” in the first multiple choice option, enter SUBSCRIBE
7. To the right of the SUBSCRIBE choice, click “Add action”, then click “Add contact to group”
8. Enter the group name, such as “Subscribers”
9. Next to “if response has word” in the second multiple choice option, enter STOP
10. To the right of the STOP choice, click Add action”, then click “More actions…” and “Block sending to contact”.
11. Click “Done”.

When you are ready to send the poll, click “Send poll…” next to your Subscription Poll on the Services page. Enter the group of contacts in the “To” field, then click “Send”.
 
Removing contacts who do not opt-in
After setting up your Subscription Service or sending your Subscription poll, you will have a Contact group, by default called Subscribers, that will contain all the Contacts that have agreed and consented to continue receiving communication using their data.
 
To permanently remove the contacts who have not given consent:

1. Click “Contacts” in the left side bar
2. Click the Subscribers group
3. Click “Non-Members”
4. Click the checkbox at the top left to select all contacts that are not in the Subscribers group. If there is more than 1 page of contacts, click “Select all XXXX contacts”.
5. Click “Actions”
6. Click “Delete contacts”,
7. Click “Yes, Delete” to permanently remove the Contact(s) and delete their personal data from your Telerivet account.

Notifying your staff of data privacy queries
As part of the data privacy legislation, customers are granted the right to take other steps, such as lodging complaints and transferring their private data to another entity of their choice.  Telerivet makes it easy to automatically notify your data protection officer or another representative when you receive an incoming SMS message asserting one of these rights.

1. Click “Services”,
2. Click “Add New Service”,
3. Click “Custom Actions”.
4. Click “When a new message is received”
5. Click “Add condition”
6. Click “(select variable)” then click “[[content]]”
7. Click “is” and select “has word”
8. Enter a word or phrase, such as “erasure”, that you want to trigger a notification to your data protection officer or other representative. If there is more than one word or phrase, click “or…” and enter each word or phrase in a separate field.
9. Click “Add action…” (indented under the condition)
10. Click “Send email”
11. Enter one email address to notify and enter the subject line of the email
12. Click “Done”

When a contact sends an SMS message containing one of the specified words or phrases, Telerivet will automatically send an email so that you can process the request accordingly.