Well, May 25 has come and gone, and to be honest, I didn’t really notice, since I was on vacation at the time. Risky, you might say, to be away during that time (and I didn’t return until a week later, too?!), but when I had planned this trip back in February, the GDPR was the furthest thing on my mind.

Thanks to two very hard-working individuals, I had gotten my new data protection statement and put it on my website before leaving the country, and I actually managed to not think about the whole mess for more than a few minutes during the first few days of my vacation. (After that, I had way too much fun to let that even enter my mind.)

As it turns out, life did go on after D-day, and so far nothing untoward has happened, neither in my immediate surroundings, nor in the greater scheme of things – other than the gazillion e-mails with either information on the new rules or a request to sign up for a newsletter (again) or sign an agreement that was probably not really necessary.

I was pleasantly surprised by a few agencies who obviously did their homework very well and sent me well thought out agreements and information.
I also participated in another webinar on the topic, and now I actually feel very relaxed about the whole thing.
I have done the necessary things (provided information on what data I collect and what I do with it, checked my security measures and retention periods), and I am reasonably confident that I will be able to comply with an individual’s request regarding their personal data according to the new law and withstand scrutiny by an authority (if an audit should ever happen, something I think is highly unlikely, if not impossible).

I hope my freelancing colleagues out there have already come or are at least coming to that same point of calm and relaxation after these really crazy weeks of uncertainty and panic-mongering – if even the authorities themselves aren’t prepared or sure how to interpret this new regulation, why should I worry? It is about the big fish, anyway, and we are way too small for them to bother…