GDPR and brand monitoring: what you are allowed to do
Monitoring what the public says about your brand is lawful in the UK, but the way you do it matters. The line sits between watching commentary about your business and building files on individuals.
The lawful basis
Most brand monitoring rests on legitimate interest: a business has a real, articulable interest in knowing what is publicly said about it, and collecting public posts mentioning it is a proportionate way to serve that interest. Document that reasoning once, properly, and keep it with your data protection records.
The practical rules
- Collect only public content, through official channels, never by evading platform controls
- Store the minimum: handle, text, link, date, classification
- Set a retention period and enforce it automatically; twelve months then deletion, keeping only aggregate statistics, is a defensible pattern
- Do not build profiles of individuals or follow a person across platforms; you monitor the brand, not the people
- Be ready to delete a stored mention if the author asks
Special category data
If a mention reveals health, religion or similar, treat it carefully: classify and respond if needed, but do not warehouse it. Sectors like healthcare should take specific advice.
The test worth applying
If a regulator, or the person who wrote the post, saw your database, would it look like a business keeping an ear on its reputation or like surveillance? Design for the first answer and monitoring stays comfortably within the rules.
MyView watches every mention of your brand and tells you what needs a reply.
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