GDPR Overview

Control over personal data is a fundamental right of every individual. With organizations across the world collecting customer data to enable them to provide services, it becomes important that companies manage data in a transparent manner with the customer’s consent.

GDPR, stands for “General Data Protection Regulation”. It is one of the most important changes made to data privacy regulations in the last two decades. It establishes a new framework for handling and protecting the personal data of EU-based residents and is in effect since May 25, 2018. It provides the citizens of the EU greater control over their personal data and assures them that their information is protected.

Does GDPR affect you?

Although GDPR is a data protection framework for the citizens residing in the EU, it also applies to all companies that handle personal data of individuals from the EU. This means that almost every major corporation in the world will need to be ready when GDPR comes into effect. If you or your organization stores and processes personal data in connection to services or goods offered in EU, then the laws applies to you as well. Also, in the the event of infringement of these laws, you can face fines and penalties from 10 million to 20 million dollars or 2% to 4% of the annual revenue of the organization depending upon whichever is higher.

Our commitment to GDPR

We are fully GDPR compliant since the 25th of May 2018. Over the past few months, multiple internal teams have been working towards making sure that we are aligned to the GDPR framework. Also, we’ve built product features for greater privacy and data control. You can learn about our organization wide efforts for GDPR here

As an organization, Freshdesk has always implemented and practiced processes which ensure that customer data is stored and processed in ways necessary only to serve our customers in the best possible way. Our privacy, security and data storage policies are also streamlined with the GDPR goals and objectives. Know more about the privacy and security policies here

GDPR Readiness Initiatives at Freshdesk

Freshdesk is committed towards upholding the underlying principles of GDPR and here are some of the initiatives we’ve undertaken.

Accountability

At Freshdesk, there exists an established Privacy Policy created with support from our leadership. Our leaders commit to support and provide guidelines for data protection compliance through a framework of standard policies and procedures.

Customer's Personal Data with Freshdesk

The GDPR requires organizations to provide more information about the way individuals’ information is used. Freshdesk delivers on our customer’s privacy policy objective by enabling comprehensive data flow and process maps for the customer’s data which is updated and is in line with the GDPR guidelines. We incorporated a Data Processing Addendum (DPA) into our Terms of Service so customers who subscribe to Freshdesk have their data protected by GDPR.

Know more about the Data Processing Addendum here.

Privacy by Design and Default

Programs, projects, and processes at Freshdesk are aligned to Privacy Principles right from the inception of an idea or project, thereby supporting Privacy by Design and Default principles.

Individual Rights, Subject Access, and Communication

The GDPR program thoroughly evaluates how Freshdesk, both as a data controller and processor, is placed with its existing procedures for readiness to

Features built for GDPR readiness

Right to be Forgotten

Freshdesk lets you delete customer/agent data permanently. You can delete the customer/agent’s profile and all the data associated with it like tickets raised by them, team huddle discussions, phone conversations, chats, satisfaction ratings provided, topics created and discussions in forums.

A delete or an export request from a customer would have to be routed via the admin who validates if the requestor is genuine.

End-User Profile Deletion

Freshdesk currently supports the deletion of end-user profile information with an option of soft delete as well as permanent delete which will erase all associated data like tickets, forums, calls and so on.

Know more about how to delete end-user profile here

Agent Profile Deletion

We currently support the deletion of Agent profile information with soft delete and permanent delete options where all their contributions like knowledge base articles, tickets and team huddle discussions are anonymized and all PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is deleted forever.

Know more about how to delete agent profile here

Ticket Deletion

Users of Freshdesk can delete tickets. In doing so, all team huddle discussion associated with the ticket are deleted along with it. Follow the steps in the below given link to delete tickets:

Attachment and Image Deletion

Customers can delete attachments and images by deleting the support tickets to which those attachments and images are attached.

In addition, Freshdesk customers can leverage the following APIs to assist with their GDPR compliance efforts:

in a secure environment with no access unless explicitly approved by senior management to comply with applicable laws. These archived logs would also be purged automatically after 12 months.

Right to Portability

Freshdesk supports export request from customers. A customer can export user contact details, tickets of the user, forums the user has contributed to with the respective APIs.

An export request from a customer would have to be routed via the admin who validates if the requestor is genuine. Customers can leverage the following APIs to assist with their GDPR compliance efforts on data portability:

User Profile

User profile can be accessed using View a Contact API

Tickets of the User

List Ticket by Requestor using List Tickets API

Access conversations by Ticket Id

Forum contributions of the User

User contribution to forums can be accessed using this API.

Satisfaction ratings of the User

The users’ provided satisfaction rating can be accessed by this API.

Right to Rectification

The GDPR includes a right for individuals to have inaccurate personal data rectified or completed if it is incomplete. End-users and agents in Freshdesk can rectify any errors in their personal data by editing their profiles.

Know more about editing customer profile here

In addition, Freshdesk customers can leverage the following APIs to assist with their GDPR compliance efforts:

Note: We will be updating the above section continuously with our latest road map and progress.

Do I need to move my data to an EU data centre?

We, at Freshdesk, are committed towards providing a product which enables our customers to provide customer service responsibly by implementing and adhering to prescribed compliance policies, both as a data controller and processor. The upcoming GDPR enforcement is critical to our mission of providing EU and all our global customers with safe and dependable customer support software.

For more information or questions about the Freshdesk Privacy Policy, please contact support@freshworks.com

Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice or to determine how GDPR might apply to you and/or your organization. We encourage you to obtain independent professional advice, before taking or refraining from any action on the basis of the information provided here.

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