Should I get consent from a customer to collect their personal data?

While it is always good practice to receive explicit consent from your customer, certain laws and regulations (such as the GDPR) require consent prior to collecting personal data of certain individuals (such as those in the EU). It is also important to note that under GDPR, consent is one of a number of lawful bases for processing data. Others include the need to process for the performance of a contract, the need to process in order to comply with a legal obligation, and the need to process in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another natural person. Full details can be found in Article 6 of GDPR.