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Privacy and GDPR in your Shopify store: A Norwegian guide
If you run an online store on Shopify and have customers in the UK or the EU, it's crucial that you follow the privacy policy. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) imposes strict requirements on how businesses collect, store and handle personal data — and this fully applies to online stores as well.
This guide will help you understand how to ensure your Shopify store complies with both Norwegian and European privacy requirements, and how to build trust with your customers through transparency and secure data processing.
GDPR applies to all businesses that process personal data of citizens in the EU and EEA — regardless of where your store is registered. This means that Norwegian online stores that use Shopify must ensure that all features of their online store comply with these rules.
The consequences of non-compliance can be serious. In addition to fines and supervision, you risk losing customer trust -- which can damage your reputation in the long term.
In an online store, personal data can be anything from name, address and phone number to IP addresses, purchase history and tracking data from cookies. Any information that can be associated with an individual is considered personal data — and must be treated with clear purposes and security.
Shopify is a platform that is basically GDPR compliant, but the responsibility for ensuring that your store actually complies with the regulations lies with you as the store operator. That means you need to actively configure and customize your store with the necessary consents, information, and routines.
You must ensure that users of the online store receive clear information about which cookies are used — and that they give active consent before activating them. This is especially true of marketing and tracking tools such as Meta Pixel, Google Analytics or email automation.
Use an approved cookie solution that allows the user to choose which data to collect. There are apps in the Shopify App Store to help you with this, but you should make sure that the solution you choose supports explicit consent and is tailored to European requirements.
Your store must have a clear and easily accessible privacy policy. It should explain what data you collect, why, how it is stored, and what rights customers have. Shopify allows you to easily add a page for this — but the content must be tailored to your business and comply with Norwegian law.
When you use Shopify and other third-party apps, customer data is often transferred to servers outside the EU/EEA — particularly in Canada and the United States. Therefore, you must ensure that there is a valid basis for the transfer, such as standard agreements (SCCs) and data processing agreements with the suppliers.
Shopify offers a separate GDPR Data Processing Addendum (DPA) that you can enable to ensure compliance.
GDPR gives customers several rights, including:
Shopify has built-in features to handle such requests, but you should have clear procedures and inform your customers about how they can contact you to exercise these rights.
The GDPR requires that personal data be stored securely and not accessible to unauthorized persons. You must therefore ensure that:
To send out newsletters, discounts or offers by email, you must have the active consent of the customers. This means that pre-filled boxes are not allowed — the customer must actively tick to receive marketing. It also has to be easy to opt out.
If you use automation tools like Klaviyo or Mailchimp with Shopify, you should check that the integrations comply with data processing and consent requirements.
It is advisable to follow the guidelines of Data Inspectorate in Norway, which offers a number of guidelines on how Norwegian businesses should comply with the GDPR. For companies with high risk or extensive data processing, it is recommended to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment (DPIA).
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