Linking To Your Privacy Policy
March 3rd, 2009 by admin
There is no legal requirement that states that your website privacy policy must be placed on your website’s home page even though that has become the norm. Website privacy in the UK is governed by a combination of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Ecommerce Regulations of 2002. Neither of these pieces of legislation states that a website must have a privacy policy. The laws require that sites that require a privacy policy. That is any site that processes personal information must clearly display their website privacy policy.
During 2008 Google came under criticism for its failure to link to its privacy policy from its home page. A good summary is found on the BBC website. Google itself faced criticism due to the fact that in the US the California Online Privacy Act of 2003 states that a website must “conspicuously display” its privacy policy. The meaning of conspicuous is debatable but to most it would mean immediately visible. If you have a privacy policy linked to from a non core page on a website then arguably it is not “conspicuous”. A number of key privacy organisations including the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, the World Privacy Forum, Consumer Action, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation all raised concerns which were put to Google. Google took a strong stance in defence of its position but interestingly now links to its privacy policy from its home page.
