As an online business, you often face the unique challenge of using international platforms and having international clients. This means that, even though you’re subject to local rules and compliances, you can’t afford to ignore international law or even the laws of countries you’re doing business with.
For instance, since GDPR applies to individuals and organizations from the European Union, they’ll apply to you even if you are not from an EU country. All it takes is for some of your clients to be from the EU, and you are affected by it by default.
So, whenever you do business online, collect data from customers visiting your site, or even choose a digital platform for your team, you need to consider global online regulations. Here are a few tips to help you out with this.
1. Understanding Global And Regional Regulations
There are a lot of global and local regulations you have to keep track of. Some of the biggest global regulations are:
- GDPR: This was a standard European compliance (General Data Protection Regulation) and was the sole authority on most of these items until DMA regulation was introduced in November 2022. The goal of this regulation is to protect the data and privacy of individuals within the EU, and it applies to businesses doing business with those entities. In other words, it doesn’t matter if your business is not from an EU country. It applies as long as you do business with people from the EU.
- CCPA: California Consumer Privacy Act has a California, USA, for its scope, and its main goal is to regulate data privacy for California residents. The reason why it’s considered a global regulation is because it applies to companies with customers and partners in California. Now, since California is a major economic hub, this is just huge.
- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Privacy Framework: This framework aims to regulate the protection of privacy in collecting and processing personal information.
On the other hand, you have countries like China with Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China or India’s Personal Data Protection Bill. These apply only to the data involving companies operating in China or handling Chinese citizens.
The biggest challenge is that, in the modern world, you don’t have a chance to track all of it manually. Therefore, you must find a platform capable of delivering on this challenging task. This is why you need to get a platform that will send you notifications and even automatically implement some of the minor, regular changes.
2. Legal Considerations Of International Transactions
Next, you must consider the legality of what you do whenever you receive money from abroad. Sure, there’s nothing inherently illegal here, but anti-money-laundering bodies are watching closely for this one.
First, you need to consider cultural, legal, and regulatory differences. The jurisdiction is usually relevant to the party receiving funds, so always ask the party receiving the money how they would like it done. Also, when receiving funds, specify how this should be done.
Also, just because the other party stated something, it isn’t a fact. Do some research of your own. In the internet age, it shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to do so. Most importantly, it’s both a responsible and ethical thing to do.
You also need to consider the currency and payment regulations. Some areas have restrictions on which currencies they’re allowed to receive via local banks. So, you may have to consider using internationally accepted payment methods and keep your invoices in a special format.
The invoice, for instance, may have to be expressed in the local currency (the national bank exchange rate for the day) with a disclaimer that it’s equivalent to money received in USD or EUR.
Also, remember that some countries try to curtail foreign influence by having strict foreign corrupt practices or international bribery acts. Keep this in mind before making any large foreign payments.
3. Data Localization And Cross-border Data Transfer
All the customer data you receive needs to meet the regulatory compliances of the country in which it’s stored; however, citizen data protection may be global/international.
Data regarding citizens of the EU, Canada, China, or California may be treated completely differently than data from some other countries merely because the laws there are different, and you need to abide by them to work in these areas. Pay attention to the fact that each of these markets is huge, which is why any international business can’t afford to ignore them (just because their compliances are too strict).
Since these data are under different jurisdictions, they may have to be stored differently, which is why you need a great document management system. Categorizing will be a challenge, but with the right document templates for business, you may be able to pull it off.
Keep in mind that following regulations is not your only concern. Sure, you need to treat this data right, but some entrepreneurs get so obsessed with this idea that they completely forget about the primary purpose of the data. You need to store and analyze your data, so you must pick the right document management system and find a way to remain within these bounds.
Like always, you’re walking a narrow line between being completely compliant with these laws and getting the most out of available customer data. Again, this is best left automated since the human triage process might not be up to date with the latest regulations (and they do get updated frequently).
4. Cookies And Privacy Laws
If you’ve been on YouTube lately, you might have noticed that it has started to crack down on AdBlock users. For many users, it issued a warning and then promised to suspend their YouTube access if they refused to allow ads on their platform.
The problem is that this might not be exactly legal in the EU.
First, there’s a regulation of what kind of data they can collect, and YouTube failed to ask for permission to use this ad blocker detection system. This potentially violates the ePrivacy Directive.
They also don’t have the right to discriminate against users who refuse to allow this ad blocker detection system.
So, what happens next? You have this major company that has millions and billions of users across the globe with restrictions on the way some of these users can experience the platform. Do you just roll back on this decision or start keeping up with this double standard?
What happens when the next change comes, then the next one after that? What if these regulations become wilder and wilder, and the same platform on one continent becomes unrecognizable on the other?
Some content is already geo-restricted, but this is a relatively minor change, usually not affecting the whole platform’s experience and integrity. How these cookies and privacy laws are treated can be something else entirely.
5. Educating Your Team And Collaborating With Legal Experts
If you have a lot of clients from a specific region, it might be worthwhile to hire counsel from there or specialize in regional law. This way, you’ll get that extra projection you desperately need. You might even ask them to perform a much-needed legal audit of your enterprise and tell you if anything can be improved.
Ideally, you would create an advisory board consisting of legal experts specializing in different regional laws so that you can coordinate your activity all over.
It’s also important to keep your entire team on board. Data protection laws are on the level of the company, which means that if one of your employees makes a mistake, your entire team will be at fault.
So, how do you make your team more mindful of these issues? There are several ways to do so.
First, you want your team to embark on regular training programs. This should be systemic and take place in several stages:
- Internal knowledge sharing: your team should share their knowledge and experiences through meetings, in-house training, and mentorship programs.
- External workshops and seminars: Then, there are external workshops and seminars which, although more expensive, are worth the trouble. They also provide networking opportunities, which could become an invaluable resource.
- Online learning platforms: The simplest way to approach this issue is to find the best online courses and insist that your staff attend.
Overall, the integrity of your team will be a determining factor. With the right approach, you can transform how people learn and make this journey easier.
In An Ever-changing Landscape Of Online Regulations, You Need To Be Extra Vigilant To Stay Safe
The bottom line is that digitalizing your business means collecting customer data and working via online platforms. For this to work, you must adhere to any regulation under which jurisdiction you find yourself. It’s a challenge, but nothing you can’t overcome with the right tool.