Big Washington-based DMC group Global DMC Partners, included on the latest Special Events “25 Top DMCs,” announced Monday that it has launched its Global Data Protection Regulation education initiative to foster awareness, education, and global implementation of data protection processes within their partnership of over 65 independently owned DMCs.
As noted in last week’s Eventline, The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is designed to better protect the personal data of EU citizens and residents. It covers everything from attendee names, photos and email addresses to social networking posts, medical information and computer IP addresses. It applies to a broad range of companies, including organizations headquartered anywhere in the world, holding events anywhere in the world, so long as the organization is collecting any personal data on any EU citizen or resident attendees. Further, it will cover the United Kingdom even after the U.K. separates from the EU.
In a nutshell, the GDPR aims to give greater power back to the data subjects over how their personal data is used by the organizations that capture, store and process it.
Big DMC network Hosts Global Alliance announced its own GDPR program last week.
The Global DMC Partners program launched with an internal educational online seminar to ensure network-wide awareness of the regulation and to provide recommended action items for DMCs to work towards compliancy, the company says. The initiative includes plans for future educational webinars and a GDPR handbook to provide both DMCs and meeting planners with current implementation guidance on the regulation.
“We know GDPR is of primary concern for many of our clients and the overall meeting planning community. As a global organization, one of our priorities going into 2018 was to build awareness and highlight the urgency of GDPR throughout our DMC partnership to ensure readiness before May 25, 2018,” said Catherine Chaulet, president of Global DMC Partners. “It is part of our ongoing focus to provide tools to both our DMCs and our clients to assist them in staying up-to-date on regulations and trends.”
“Our DMC members are focused on reviewing their data collection and retention processes, identifying areas of improvement, and implementing new processes, no matter their location," said Stacy Tischler, senior vice president of operations. “They are also dedicated to making sure their local vendors are aware of GDPR and its implications. The next step is ongoing education and compliancy,”
Global DMC Partners’ May 2018 Partners Meeting will provide the opportunity to collaborate on successful data protection processes that their individual DMCs have implemented since the launch of the initiative, the company announced. In August, an interactive session at Global DMC Partners’ annual client conference, Connection 2018, will provide another forum for meeting professionals to discuss best practices.
