How to Get Customer Consent or Track Legal Basis to Process Your Lead's or Customer's Personal Data

Please Note:  While GHL Customer Care provides tools to help you collect and manage customer data, your legal team or outside counsel are the best resource for compliance advice. This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Why This Matters

Under GDPR and other data privacy laws, businesses must have a legally recognized reason—called a “legal basis”—to collect and process personal data.

Typical legal bases include:

• Informed consent (explicit permission from the customer)
  

• Contractual obligations (to provide services/products the customer has signed up for)

• Legitimate interests (business purposes that don’t override customer rights)
  

1. What is Personal Data?

Personal data is any information that can identify an individual, such as:

• Name, email address, phone number
  

• Location data, IP addresses
  

• Payment details, order history

2. How to Collect Consent from Your Customers

Our platform provides built-in consent collection tools across each customer touchpoint. Each data-collection area in GHL Customer Care allows you to link your Privacy Policy / Terms of Service and include customizable consent checkboxes.

• Funnels & Websites

  • Personal data can be collected through integrated Forms & Surveys, Order Forms, Calendars, and Webchat on your web pages.

• Forms & Surveys

  • Use the Custom Checkbox element in Form Builder and add your own disclosure language based on your business practices and applicable regulations.

    Screenshot

    Consent will be tracked under contact custom value

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• Webchat

  • Add your own disclosure language based on your business practices and applicable regulations

  • Highlight Privacy Policy, click Link, and paste your URL.

  • You can also configure this in the Legal Message description box

  • Go to Chat Widget → Chat window → Additional options → Compliance notice & consent.
     

  • Enable Show legal notice to display a read-only disclosure with the contact form.

  • Enable Add a consent checkbox when you need visitors to acknowledge or agree to your consent text.

  • Use Make this checkbox required to require consent before submission, or leave it off to make consent optional.

  • Use Pre-check the box by default if you want the checkbox selected when the form loads.

    Screenshot

• Calendars (Bookings)

  • You can customize the consent checkbox text to align with your specific requirements.

    Screenshot

• Order Forms

  • Enable the Terms & Conditions checkbox in the Order Form settings.

  • Add your own disclosure language based on your business practices and applicable regulations. 

  • Highlight Privacy Policy, click Link, and paste your URL.

    Screenshot

3. How to Track Legal Basis

You can track your  legal basis for processing in GHL Customer Care by using tags and custom fields:

1. Create a custom field (e.g., Legal Basis) under Contacts.

   • Add values that match your business needs : Consent, Contractual Obligation, Legitimate Interest.

2. Create a tag for each legal basis if you want easy filtering.

   • Example: Contractual Obligation, Legitimate Interest.

3. Apply the tag to contacts manually or via automation.

   • Automation example: When a form is submitted, automatically assign the corresponding tag and update the custom field.

   • The value will be stored in the custom field under the contact record, making it easy to filter, export, or review your data collection practices as needed.