In setting up and maintaining your website, you have likely wondered whether, and how often, you need to update your website’s policies and legal pages. Below, we discuss the need for updating in relation to the seven main policies and legal pages, namely Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms and Conditions, Delivery/Shipping Policy, Return/Refund Policy, Disclaimers, and Copyright Notice. For more information on these policies and legal pages, please see FAQ on “Which policies or legal pages should my e-commerce website have?”
Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy
Both the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy (where involving personal data) are required by law, that is by the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486). In addition, your Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy may require compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For more information on compliance with the GDPR, please see FAQ on “What is the GDPR? When do I need to make my company’s privacy policies compliant with the GDPR?”
Thus, so as not to contravene the law(s) which are applicable to you, you must review and update your Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy whenever there are any changes to the way you collect and process the personal data of your online visitors/customers or whenever there are new relevant laws that require compliance with.
Terms and Conditions, Delivery/Shipping Policy, Return/Refund Policy, Disclaimers, and Copyright Notice
Unlike the previously discussed two policies and legal pages, Terms and Conditions, Delivery/Shipping Policy, Return/Refund Policy, Disclaimers, and Copyright Notice are not mandated by law. Consequently, it is not exactly required by law to update these either.
However, in order to have robust legal protection for your business, these legal pages and policies should accurately and pertinently reflect the relationship between you and your online visitors/customers. Otherwise, an irrelevant and/or out of date policy and legal page would have no use in protecting you or your business if legal complications or disputes arise. Therefore, to stay out of any legal complications, it would be best practice to update these at least annually as well as whenever there are relevant changes, e.g. changes to the product or service you are offering, or whenever there are new relevant laws that require compliance with.
Notifying users about the update(s)
When updating Terms and Policies, businesses need to notify users. Regardless of whether you are updating those policies and legal pages on your website required by law or those not required by law, you should inform online visitors/customers of the change(s) to ensure that your updated policies and legal pages are valid and enforceable.
Your notice to users regarding the updates to your policies and legal pages should:
- be announced before they are effective;
- state from what date the changes will be applicable on;
- explicitly point out the specific parts which have been updated; and
- include a link directing the user to the updated policies and legal pages on your website.
To uphold transparency of your business operations, you may also wish to explain the reason for the change(s) in your notice to users.
Your notice may take the form of:
- a mass email update to users; and/or
- a prominently displayed notice to users on the website (to be safe, you may wish to implement a clickwrap agreement mechanism, comprising of a notice to users who visit the website which requires acceptance of the new terms by checking a box or clicking a button in order to proceed to the website).
Key takeaways
- As a general rule of thumb, you should update the policies and legal pages on your website at least annually or once every few months in addition to where there are any relevant changes; updates on Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy (where personal data is involved) are required by law whereas updates on Terms and Conditions, Delivery/Shipping Policy, Return/Refund Policy, Disclaimers, and Copyright Notice are, though not mandates by law, strongly recommended.
- When updating policies and legal pages, you must notify users of the changes in the agreement(s).