Check your privacy statement for readability. Privacy statements need to be easy to read and understood by consumers.

One way to build trust with consumers is to make it easy for them to understand what your organization does with the personal information it collects. Privacy statements should be . . .

• Written in plain, straightforward language. Avoid using legal terms and long, complex sentences.
• Checked for readability. Have a staff member or friend who is not conversant in privacy issues read your statement and provide you with feedback. In addition, Microsoft Word allows you to run Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scores on your privacy statement. Click on “Tools” and choose the “Spelling Grammar” option. The summary provided after the spell and grammar check will provide this information.
• Be separated with topic headings calling out important sections in your privacy statement, such as information sharing, choice, and security.
• Easy to navigate. If your organization has a long privacy statement, consider beginning it with a table of contents that links to sections within the policy, so consumers can easily move to the sections that are of greatest interest to them.

TRUSTe offers some guidelines to writing privacy statements on its Web site. TRUSTe’s Privacy Whitepaper and TRUSTe’s Model Privacy Policy Disclosures are two tools to use when drafting or redrafting your organization’s privacy statement and help your organization clearly communicate its practices to consumers.

Joanne Furtsch is a senior account manager at TRUSTe.

Read past tips on http://www.truste.org/sealholders/tech_tips.php.

 

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