cpreen wrote: In the UK HMRC are reasonably happy if you collect two non-conflicting pieces of evidence of the customer location in order to decide the correct VAT rate. So declared address and IP geo-location is what we use. But hey, here comes the EU again saying we shouldn't be tracking IP addresses. The situation is Kafka-esque to say the least.
Hi Conrad.
To my understanding, the GDPR doesn't stop us from collecting IPs. That would be insane, because IPs are logged in server logs anyway. The EU now considers IPs as personal information: in order to collect any kind of personal information (including IPs), we must get the user's clear consent first. From what I understand, consent is given when the user / customer clicks on the "I agree with the Terms and Conditions" button, when they register, or when they complete an order. The button should be unchecked by default.
We must publish two different documents on our sites: the first is the "Terms and Conditions" (it should be there already). The second is called "Privacy Policy". It explains what data is collected, why it is collected and how it is used/stored. This document should include a statement saying that it forms a part of the overall "Terms and Conditions". So, when a user clicks the "I agree" button, he/she agrees with the terms in both documents.
Here's an excerpt from the revised "Privacy Policy" document that I am preparing here. It's the part referring to the IPs:
Information collected when you place an order:
To complete an order, you must submit your billing information along with your email address. This information is collected to comply with the requirements of the EU Directives 2006/112/EC and 2008/8/EC, regarding the VAT tax and the place of supply of services, respectively. Your Internet Protocol address is also collected when you add items to the shopping cart, to comply with the EU directive 2008/8/EC regarding the collection of two non-conflicting pieces of evidence of the customer location, in order to calculate the correct VAT tax rate.
Again, this is my own interpretation. Please correct me if it is wrong, and of course pardon my language errors.