Telecoms & Media: Lawful data use in a data-hungry world
Telecoms, streaming platforms and media companies sit at the heart of the data economy. You handle traffic and location data, viewing behaviour, app usage, advertising identifiers, subscriber accounts and, increasingly, cross-device profiles that power personalisation and adtech.
That brings heightened scrutiny around:
- Lawful bases for analytics, personalisation and advertising
- Transparency and profiling under GDPR and ePrivacy rules
- Cookie and tracking governance, especially with complex adtech stacks
- Data sharing with partners, platforms and measurement providers
GDPR Register helps telcos, broadcasters, streamers, publishers and adtech players bring structure and accountability to how they collect, use and share personal data – from core communications services to targeted advertising.
Typical challenges for telco & media organisations
Clients in this sector often struggle with:
- Complex data flows – traffic, location, viewing and clickstream data moving between internal systems and external partners
- Overlapping regimes – GDPR, ePrivacy, telecoms rules and advertising/marketing guidelines applying at the same time
- Cookie and tracking sprawl – multiple tags, pixels and SDKs implemented over years, with limited documentation
- Profiling and audience building – needing to explain, assess and document how profiling works and what rights people have
- Heavy vendor reliance – SSPs, DSPs, DMPs/CDPs, analytics tools, measurement and anti-fraud vendors all touching user data
How GDPR Register supports compliance in telco & media
1. Clear map of customer, subscriber and audience data
Get a structured view of where data comes from, how it is used and who it is shared with, including:
- Network and subscriber management systems
- Streaming and content platforms, recommendation engines and apps
- Identity and profile stores, CDPs/DMPs and analytics platforms
- Ad servers, measurement partners, SSPs/DSPs and other adtech components
Our RoPA module lets you document purposes (service delivery, analytics, personalisation, advertising), lawful bases (contract, legal obligation, consent, legitimate interests), categories of data (including location and traffic data), recipients, transfers, retention and security measures. You can import existing Excel registers and align them under one coherent structure.
2. DPIAs and risk management for profiling and tracking
Profiling, large-scale monitoring and behavioural targeting often require DPIAs and solid risk management. GDPR Register helps you:
- Run DPIA workflows for new products, profiling models, cross-device tracking and adtech integrations
- Assess risks using a visual risk matrix, linking risks to specific systems, campaigns and partners
- Define mitigation measures (e.g. additional controls, stricter purposes, privacy-enhancing tech), assign owners and track progress
- Produce clear, repeatable DPIA reports to support internal approvals and supervisory expectations
3. Governance for cookies, tracking and consent
Align your cookie and tracking practices with your documented processing:
- Treat cookie- and SDK-based data collection as specific processing activities in your RoPA
- Capture which tools are used on which properties, for what purposes and under which lawful bases
- Link processing activities to your consent management platform setup, including categories and purposes
- Use Legitimate Interest Assessments (LIAs) where applicable and document why certain processing is based on consent vs. legitimate interests
4. Vendor, platform and partner management across the adtech and content chain
Your ecosystem may include dozens or hundreds of partners. GDPR Register allows you to:
- Maintain a central register of processors and partners (adtech platforms, measurement providers, hosting, OTT distribution, recommendation engines, etc.)
- Track Data Processing Agreements, technical and organisational measures, data locations and international transfers
- Link each vendor to the processing activities, campaigns, properties or products they are involved in
- Integrate vendor risk into your overall privacy risk picture, making external dependencies visible to stakeholders
5. Managing data subject rights and objections to profiling
Users are increasingly aware of their rights, particularly around profiling and targeted advertising. With GDPR Register you can:
- Log and manage data subject requests (access, rectification, restriction, erasure, portability and objection) from subscribers, viewers and users
- Record and track objections to profiling and direct marketing, and connect them to relevant systems and processes
- Document any legal or technical limitations (e.g. retention obligations, technical logs) with a clear reasoning trail
- Maintain a breach and incident register, capturing incidents involving tracking, mis-configured tags or data leaks, with remediation steps and notifications
6. Ongoing accountability for regulators, partners and users
GDPR Register gives privacy, legal and product teams in telco and media organisations a single source of truth for privacy:
- Dashboards showing the status of RoPAs, DPIAs/LIAs, risks, incidents and tasks across brands and properties
- Document templates and checklists aligned with day-to-day privacy operations – not just one-off compliance projects
- An AI assistant to help draft and update processing descriptions, assessments, partner documentation and user-facing explanations
Instead of scattered spreadsheets, legacy inventories and undocumented tracking, you have one platform that shows what personal data you collect, how you use it for communications, streaming and advertising, how you explain it to users, and what safeguards you apply – helping you maintain lawful data use, protect brand trust and support innovation in a highly scrutinised sector.