It is so easy to make a website nowadays. What is not so easy is making sure your website meets legal requirements. Most people don’t even realize that websites have such requirements but they do. One of, if not the most important is the Privacy Policy.

A Privacy Policy is required by a lot of different laws:

• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
• The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
• California’s Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA)

All of the above require a privacy policy in certain circumstances. Even if none of the laws seem to cover you your circumstances it is still good business practice to have a privacy policy.

We live in a time where everyone wants to know how their personal information will be used and stored. Transparency on this builds trust with your clients and customers. And what business doesn’t want to be trusted by those they serve?

So what does your policy need to say?

• What personal information a company collects from customers and other members of the public;
• How it collects such personal information;
• How it stores and protects the information;
• How it uses the information;
• How it may distribute such information; and
• How its customers may access the information collected about them and what choices they have to review, edit/correct, and perhaps delete such information.

There are several copy and paste privacy policies out there. But is it right for your company? A privacy policy is a legal document and you don’t want just anything. You want to be sure that your policy is accurate to your practices and actually lays out what you really do with the information.