TECH SUPPORT is a column written by Ken Richman from Nub News partner Teddington Web to help you get your business online and to make a success of it once you are up and running.

Perhaps you heard about the tax advice non-profit that offered a free bottle of wine to the first person to read their website's privacy policy. It took over three months to be claimed. 

Ironically, the claimant was someone who was simply doing research for their own website's legal documents. 

Tax Policy Associates, a tax-focused non-profit organisation, buried the offer of 'a bottle of good wine' to the first person to claim it as an experiment to see if people actually read the legal small print. Clearly, not many do.

Website privacy notices, and those immensely irritating cookie banners are all connected with data protection and the reason they exist is to help websites comply with the requirements of relevant legislation such as the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). 

You may be wondering whether it's OK to buy a document 'off the shelf' or simply 'borrow' one from another website. And as for cookies, well… that's another story.

Free wine anyone? (Photo: Kelsey Knight)

Who or what is in charge of all this?

Let's get back to the root of all this. 

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the independent supervisory authority for data protection in the UK with a mission "to uphold information rights for the public in the digital age". The ICO can give advice on how to comply and has the power to impose stiff fines on companies that don't fall in line.

Here's the ICO'S page on cookies and privacy notices. I'll do my best to summarise some salient points, but I advise you to click the link and read it in full before you start cribbing one from another website. 

If you're in business and handling customer data, it's good that you take some time to understand the need to protect people's private information entrusted to you, and you understand the consequences of failing to do so. Ultimately, that's more important than engaging in a box-ticking exercise to hopefully avoid a fine.

Does my business need a privacy notice?

Yes. If your company holds personal data – which is generally any small business, charity or group that has information about people such as their names and email addresses – you'll need a privacy notice.

Where do I put my privacy notice?

You should make it freely available and easy to access by those whose personal data you collect, as soon as possible. 

For example, if you take enquiries from customers by email, include a link to your privacy notice in your reply, usually at the end as part of your signature. 

You need a privacy notice on your website if that's mainly how your customers find you. You could include a link to your privacy notice on your website's contact form page, where people can see it before they start putting their details in.

Do I also need a cookie warning notice on my website?

Yes. Visitors to your website need to be told that cookies are being used, and what they do. If the cookies aren't strictly necessary to the running of your website, you'll also need the user's agreement to use them.

I was going to go into some detail about cookies in this article, including how to make your website cookie-compliant, but I've run out of time and space and, as is so often the case, the very thought of cookie regulations is affecting my will to live. 

Expect a full article once I have recovered.

Cookies aren't the only food-related tech jargon out there. 'Bread crumbs' help you follow your journey through a site a-la Hansel and Gretel, while rumour has it 'spam' actually refers to the Monty Python sketch of the same name.

How do I get a privacy notice for my website?

In brighter news, the ICO recently released their own Privacy Notice generator that's completely free to use and, one hopes, meets their own requirements. 

Click the link and give it a go; and if this has helped you in any way, I'm happy to accept any offers of good wine for the trouble!