The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), or Règlement général sur la protection des données (RGPD in French) is a European community regulation that, since May 25, 2018, has given European residents back control and ownership of their personal data. Its aim is to make organizations that are, in effect, custodians of individuals' personal data, more accountable.
The National Commission for Data Protection and Liberties (CNIL - France, or Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés in French) published a revised Personal Data Security Guide (Guide de la sécurité des données personnelles) in 2024.
The CNIL describes personal data as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”.
In other words, data is considered “personal” if it can be used to identify someone. Addresses, names, telephone numbers, photos, biometric data, opinions and geolocation data are all examples of the huge amount of sensitive information that is used by various entities, whether companies, associations or local authorities.
There are two types of identification:
It should also be noted that the processing of personal data consists in carrying out an operation or a set of operations involving personal data, such as, for example, the following:
In today's digital world, whether we are customers, suppliers, users or employees, we leave behind a wealth of personal data, more often than not without our knowledge.
Even if we have nothing to hide, our personal data is information we do not want to pass on to just anyone. And yet, whether through carelessness, ignorance or simply because we cannot do anything about it, we do it all the time!
That is why, in 2018, the European community had to implement the GDPR to force entities in possession of our data to be more transparent about how it is used.
The GDPR essentially has three objectives:
Whether they are located in Europe or notcompanies, associations and local authorities in possession of personal data of European Union residents shall absolutely comply with the GDPR.
The provisions of the GDPR are directly applicable in all 27 member states of the European Union. They are also valid for business entities in Canada and Switzerland.
Based on an assessment report dated January 15, 2024, Canada has adequacy status, allowing Canadian companies to transfer personal data from the EU to Canada without additional protection measures. Country reports are available in this article from the European Commission: The Commission estimates that EU personal data flows can continue with 11 third countries and territories.
Commercial organizations in Canada and Switzerland meet the requirements, as shown in the European Commission's article Adequacy decisions.
As far as PlanetHoster is concerned, have no fear in this regard, as we are subject to Canadian and Quebec law. Our strict security policy obliges us to rigorously protect your personal data. What is more, the necessary measures have long been ingrained in our corporate culture.
One might be led to believe that implementing the GDPR is complex. However, this is not the case. For each piece of personal data, all you need to do is identify how it is processed and ask yourself:
More specifically :
Since May 25, 2018, entities that are not GDPR-compliant have been penalized. A payment of 10 to 20 million euros or 2 to 4 % of their worldwide sales may be required. They may even be subject to class actions.
The image of an offending entity is obviously severely compromised. All the more reason to comply!
At PlanetHoster, we are committed to continually implementing the necessary actions to ensure our compliance with all GDPR requirements.
First of all, it should be emphasized that we do not consult data. We only store essential data. Furthermore, data is not transferred outside the cloud zones of each country.
Natively, PlanetHoster retains little information:
For data hosting, with regard to connection logs to the PlanetHoster customer area:
Communications use private, encrypted links between PlanetHoster sites.
With regard to data security:
For availability (uptime) :
Other standards contributing to our compliance :
PlanetHoster rigorously complies with the requirements of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). For further details, please consult the ICANN website: https://www.icann.org/en.
Our websites comply with the requirements of the GDPR. Here is a summary.
Before installing cookies on the user's device, our websites provide clear information on:
Users can withdraw their consent as easily as they gave it.
For example, a link or button to manage cookie preferences (or to deactivate them) is accessible at all times on the site.
Some cookies do not require prior consent. These “strictly necessary” cookies are essential to the proper functioning of the website, such as those used to maintain an active user session (session cookies) or to ensure site security.
The user is always informed of the presence of these cookies and their function.