Quantcast
Channel: London and Watford based solicitors | Matthew Arnold & Baldwin » express
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

ICO tells people involved in direct marketing to be extremely clear when getting consent

0
0

The Information Commissioner’s Office has published new guidance for organisations that conduct direct marketing. They need to obtain extremely clear and specific consent before marketing to them, and they must obtain consent to the relevant form of communication. Therefore, an organisation cannot use automated calls unless someone has specifically consented to that method, no marketing emails unless someone has agreed to that method, no texts unless someone has agreed to receive those. Organisations should also only send marketing messages in accordance with the timeframes that the recipient of the mailings had understood. Accordingly, if there was consent for a one-off message, that did not give the all clear to market for all future marketing messages.

The ICO said that organisations could rely on implied consent as long as it was freely given, specific and informed. There must still be a positive action indicating agreement. People should also have a genuine choice as to whether to consent or not – consent cannot be a condition of subscribing to a service. One further warning that is worth noting: the ICO said implied consent could not be relied on when it is through a privacy policy that is hard to find, difficult to understand, lengthy or rarely read.

The UK’s data protection regulator recommends the use of opt-in boxes to obtain explicit consent. Organisations should keep clear records of the consent obtained for the marketing so they can use it as evidence if they are challenged.

The guidance clarifies these areas: market research and sugging (meaning selling under the guise of research); rules applying to promotional and campaigning activities of charities and political parties; solicited and unsolicited marketing; methods for obtaining consent; generating leads and marketing lists; and suppression (being the process of maintaining a record that an individual does not wish to receive any more information, rather than removing that person from the database entirely).


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images