
On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union will become enforceable, with large fines for non-compliance. CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor 4.7.4 (to be released in the first half of May) will have the tools to help you comply with the regulation. Our technical support will be able to assist those who use older versions and can't upgrade.
This topic is a brief summary. Our blog has a more detailed article about upcoming GDPR compliance tools.
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) describes how you can acquire, store, and process the personal data of EU citizens and residents. You and your lawyers have probably familiarized yourselves with it already, but here is the full text of the GDPR just in case. The upcoming regulation does affect online stores: for example, when a customer gives you an email address for account registration or newsletter subscription, that counts as personal data processing.
CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor 4.7.4 (to be released in the first half of May) will include an add-on called GDPR Compliance (EU). Currently, the add-on is available for testing at http://dev.demo.cs-cart.com.

The add-on will provide the tools to:
1. Ask for consent: optional checkboxes in the standard places where personal data is collected (such as checkout, registration, newsletter subscription, etc.). Each of these checkboxes is accompanied by customizable notices about personal-data processing.
2. Keep consent history: the log of everyone and everything that they have consented to. This history is only accessible via the database and includes the texts of personal data notices as they were at the time when consent was given.
3. Manage personal data: the ability to view all the personal data of a customer in the Administration panel on the customer editing page. If a request is made by email, you'll be able to export all the personal data of a customer to XML files or anonymize him or her.
Normally, we don’t port new functionality to older versions. But we understand the importance of GDPR compliance, so that's why our support staff can offer guidance to those using older versions; for a small fee, we can even adapt the add-on from 4.7.4 for your store. If you have extensive customizations (such as a custom theme) or won't be able to upgrade to version 4.7.4 for any reason, you’re welcome to contact our technical support via Help Desk.
Please note that the add-on by itself won't make you GDPR-compliant; you'll need to familiarize yourself with the regulation and see what else needs to be done (our blog has some suggestions, but there're probably more things to be done).
Feel free to discuss the GDPR, the blog article, and the upcoming add-on in this topic.