Tips for simplifying privacy communications

Guidance on consent often emphasizes that notices need to be in plain, easy-to-understand language for the consent to be meaningful. The thing is, the guidance doesn’t often tell you exactly how to do that.

In a recent speech to records and information management professionals, I offered a few concrete tips on how to improve your privacy communications.

Here are my top 10 takeaways:

1. You’re almost always writing for online, so apply best practices in web writing when drafting privacy notices and policies.
2. Make sure your sentences are short and concise, with one idea each.
3. Use action words and avoid the passive voice.
4. Eliminate jargon, acronyms and abbreviations.
5. Use sub-heads – they make your text scannable.
6. Use bullets and numbered lists instead of paragraphs.
7. Lead with the “top tasks” – the main reason people go to that page.
8. Use layers to point to more in-depth information.
9. Ask someone who’s less familiar with your subject matter to review.
10. Run your content through readability and accessibility tests that are available on most word processors.

Applying these best practices can help your organization be more clear and transparent about its privacy practices. Even easier… you can reach out to us, at nNovation LLP, for help with it.