Labour Party Breaches UK Privacy Laws
February 11th, 2010 by adminThe Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has cautioned the Labour Party after it made a series of automated phone calls to more than half a million people’s homes. The unsolicited calls were made without the receiver’s permission and were deemed a nuisance by many, despite a previous warning to the Party by the ICO regarding consumer privacy.
The ICO has issued the Labour Party with an enforcement notice demanding the party to not make further unauthorised telephone calls. Failure to adhere to this enforcement order will be deemed a criminal offence as Labour.
Labour obtained member’s of the public’s private contact details after purchasing lists of phone numbers to make pre-recorded calls to residents in areas with a Labour stronghold.
The ICO stated that these unauthorised telephone calls constituted a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations as they did not provide the receiver with any contact information such as a telephone number or address for the Labour Party.
These nuisance phone calls constituted direct marketing and the ICO has consistently upheld that the promotion of any political party is direct marketing.
The main issue here is that the individual persons contacted were targeted after their personal contact information had been purchased by the Labour Party solely for the purpose of direct marketing.
