In today’s digital world, consumers are becoming concerned about their personal data and how it is used - and more businesses are getting fined due to poor data privacy practices or non-compliance.

In 2023, consent management should be taken seriously by all businesses that deal with customer data. Having a solid consent management solution in place will enable your customers can easily comprehend what tracking if essential and what data will be captured to provide a personalized customer experience.

But what exactly is consent management, and why is it so important? Within this blog post we will explore the topic of consent management and the importance of implementing and using a reliable Consent Management Platform (CMP) solution.

Consent Management: The Basics

Consent management has become extremely important around the world, today there are multiple lawful requirements for businesses and websites to obtain consent from the user (user consent) to collect their data through cookies.

At its core, consent management is a process that allows customers to determine what data they want to share with an organization. Businesses are responsible for collecting and correctly managing customer consent, and ensuring they adhere to personal data standards - failure to do so could lead to hefty fines and reputational damage.

It is a process that informs users about how businesses will collect their data and how they will use their data. Consent management processes should log and track consent collection efficiently and transparently. This can stop businesses from worrying about breaching compliance with regulations and laws.

Data privacy laws control how businesses, websites and governments alike can collect and use personal data. One of the most important laws is the GDPR - The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation along with CCPA - California Consumer Privacy Act.

Consent Management Platforms

Now you have an understanding of what consent management is, let’s discuss the ins and outs of Consent Management Platforms.

A Consent Management Platform is a tool that makes sure businesses are compliant with certain consent regulations - for example, GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA.

Typically through cookie management, CMPs manage user consent on websites by overseeing the collection and utilization of consented personal information.

There are a range of consent management platforms that businesses can utilize to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations, each with its own pros and cons.

trustcassie.com is a leading consent and preference management platform, which empowers you with the ability to deliver transparency, control, data privacy, and targeted communications.

Cassie are experts at ensuring global businesses achieve compliance whilst being able to grow long-term relationships with their customers:

• Meet the evolving global compliance requirements 
• Safely and securely share consumer data 
• Query their data sets in real-time
• Deliver personalized customer journeys
• Efficiently manage customer consent and preferences 
• Maintain customer privacy 
• Use data insights to create better products

The Importance of Consent Management

Consent management is not only important for your customer's peace of mind, but it is important for businesses too.

More and more businesses are getting GDPR fines as customers are beginning to take notice of who is tracking their personal data and how it is being used. These fines can be detrimental to businesses - and can cost up to £20 million (or around 4% of the annual global turnover for a company).

The good news is that these hefty fines can be avoided by ensuring you have the right CMP. A mobile telecommunications operator received a huge fine of £16.7 million. This is because their interfaces were confusing and ignored data protection laws - and they used personal data without the consent of the user. A quality CMP could have helped to prevent this occurrence.

Ignoring consent management can also affect your company’s reputation. Clients and customers may be cautious working with you in the future as they may be concerned that you aren’t handling their data in the correct way.

The ‘clean up’ process from a CCPA fine can be long and time-consuming. It takes time to earn back the trust of users. Ultimately, non-compliance can have a huge impact on your brand reputation.

Ensure that you are taking the right steps and have a reliable and effective CMP in place to avoid large fines, build brand trust and retain customer loyalty.