Tag: Privacy policy

Celebrating 15 Years of Excellence: Dane Prairie Systems, LLC and the BBB

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, it’s a remarkable feat for a company to not only survive but thrive for over two decades. Dane Prairie Systems, LLC has achieved this impressive milestone, marking 23 years of unwavering commitment to its customers and innovative solutions. Additionally, the company has proudly been a member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for 15 years, earning an A+ rating. This achievement speaks volumes about Dane Prairie Systems’ dedication to ethical business practices and outstanding customer service. This rating not only highlights Dane Prairie Systems’ integrity but also gives customers the confidence that they are dealing with a company that values their trust.

From all of us at Dane Prairie Systems, LLC, we thank our customers for their continued support! We appreciate your business and we look forward to serving you for many years to come. You can always reach out to us for customer support, feedback, or requests through the Win2PDF online support portal.

What’s up with all of the revised privacy policies I’m getting these days?

Have you been getting a lot of email notices for updated privacy policies? Well, it’s not a coincidence. Many companies are updating or clarifying their online privacy policies to be compliant with the new European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will technically take effect on May 25, 2018.

What is the GDPR?

GDPR was designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, protect EU citizens’ data privacy, and to regulate the way organizations approach data privacy. There are a total of 99 articles that the regulation covers and you can read more about the details of this regulation through the EU GDPR Portal.

In essence, these are a series of regulations that control what information a company can collect about an individual (who reside in the EU), what they can do and how they store that information, and penalties for those companies if they violate the regulations.

Who is affected by GDPR?

From a user perspective, the protections cover any resident of the EU. Although, many companies are voluntarily extending their changes and privacy policies to include all users for simplicity.

From a company perspective, it applies to any organization who collects data on EU residents.

What should you know about GDPR, encryption, and your PDF files?

There are many more thorough sources of information on this topic (just Google ‘GDPR’), but one thing that may concern our Win2PDF customers is that the regulation restricts sending personal information unsecured. Encryption isn’t explicitly mandated by the regulations, but it is suggested several times as being part of the the compliance solution. For example, as this article points out:

…of the 261 pages of GDPR, the word ‘Encryption‘ appears just 4 times;

“…implement measures to mitigate those risks, such as encryption.” (P51. (83))
“…appropriate safeguards, which may include encryption” (P121 (4.e))
“…including inter alias as appropriate: (a) the pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data.” (P160 (1a))
“…unintelligible to any person who is not authorised to access it, such as encryption” (P163 (3a))

Does the term ‘may’, ‘such as’ and ‘as appropriate’ indicate that Encryption is mandated by GDRP, as some are suggesting? I don’t believe it does.

Do these terms suggest that Encryption is an OPTION and a good idea? Then yes, it does.

If you are sending a customer’s personal information in a PDF file, you should seriously consider encrypting the PDF.

What can you do to being compliant with GDPR?

First, here is a 12-point PDF available that gives a broad 12-step overview to achieving compliance with the GDPR.

Second, you may wish to review your current processes involving customer data that may be included in PDF files that you generate.  How are they disseminated?  Is the data secured?  If you do not currently encrypt PDF files, now may be a good time to do so.

Our Win2PDF Pro software has strong encryption included, and it is available as an upgrade if you currently have standard edition licenses.