Category Archives: marketing

February 11, 2015 · 4:03 pm

What’s happening with changes to anti-spam laws?

In October last year the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) announced a consultation to lower, or even remove, the threshold for the serving financial penalties on those who unlawfully send electronic direct marketing. I wrote at the time that

There appears to be little resistance (as yet, at least) to the idea of lowering or removing the penalty threshold. Given that, and given the ICO’s apparent willingness to take on the spammers, we may well see a real and significant attack on the scourge

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and DCMS both seemed at the time to be keen to effect the necessary legislative changes to amend the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) so that, per the mechanism at section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), adopted by PECR by virtue of regulation 31, either a serious contravention alone of PECR, or a serious contravention likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety, could give rise to a monetary penalty without the need to show – as now – likely substantial damage or substantial distress.

However, today, the Information Commissioner himself, Christopher Graham, gave vent to frustrations about delay in bringing about these changes:

Time and time again the Government talks about changing the law and clamping down on this problem, but so far it’s just that – talk. Today they are holding yet another roundtable to discuss the issue, and we seem to be going round in circles. The Government need to lay the order, change the law and bring in a reform that would make a real difference

So what has happened? Have representatives of direct marketing companies lobbied against the proposals? It would be interesting to know who was at today’s “roundtable” and what was said. But there was certainly an interesting tweet from journalist Roddy Mansfield. One hopes a report will emerge, and some record of the meeting.

One wonders why – if they are – marketing industry bodies might object to the proposed changes. The financial penalty provisions would only come into play if marketers failed to comply with the law. Spammers would get punished – the responsible companies would not.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

1 Comment

Filed under Data Protection, Information Commissioner, marketing, monetary penalty notice, PECR, spam texts

Tagged as , , , ,

February 6, 2015 · 3:35 pm

Labour’s “HowManyOfMe” – legitimate use of the electoral register?

Is Labour’s shiny new web widget “HowManyOfMe” compliant with the party’s obligations under electoral and ePrivacy law?

Regulations 102 and 106 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (as amended)1 mean that registered political parties can apply for a copy of the full electoral register, but they can only supply, disclose or make use of the information therein for “electoral purposes”. As far as I can see “electoral purposes” is nowhere defined, and, accordingly, I suspect it permits relatively broad interpretation, but, nevertheless, it clearly limits the use to which a political party can make use of electoral registration information.

With this in mind, it is worth considering whether the apparent use of such information by the Labour Party, in a new website widget, is a use which can be described as “for electoral purposes”. The widget in question invites people to submit their name (or indeed anyone else’s), email address and postcode and it will tell you how many voters in the country have that name. Thus, I find that there are 393 voters who have the name “Christopher Graham”. The widget then encourages users to register to vote. In small print underneath it says

in case you’re interested, this tool uses an aggregate figure from the electoral register and we’ve taken steps to protect the privacy of individuals

Well, I am interested. I’m interested to know whether this use of the electoral register is purely for electoral purposes. If it is, if its purpose is to encourage people to register to vote, then why does it need an email address? The widget goes on to say

The Labour Party and its elected representatives may contact you about issues we think you may be interested in or with campaign updates. You may unsubscribe at any point. You can see our privacy policy here.

But if they are using the electoral register to encourage people to give up email addresses which may then receive political marketing, surely this is stretching the use of “for electoral purposes” too far? Moreover, and despite the small print privacy notice, and the almost-hidden link to a generic privacy policy, any emails received by individuals will be likely to be sent in contravention of Labour’s obligations under The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR), which give effect to the UK’s obligations under Directive 2002/58/EC. This is because regulation 22 of PECR prohibits, in terms, the sending of electronic direct marketing (and promotion of a political party constitutes such marketing) without the prior consent of the recipient. Consent, the Directive tells us, must be “a freely given specific and informed indication of the user’s wishes”.  A vague description, as the widget here gives us, of what may happen if one submits an email address, and a statement about unsubscribing, do not legitimise any subsequent sending of direct marketing.

The email address I used is one I reserve for catching spammers; I’ve not received anything yet, but I expect to do so. I would be prepared to argue that any email I receive cannot be said to relate to the electoral purpose which permit use of the electoral register, and will be sent in contravention of PECR.  As I said recently, one of the key battlegrounds in the 2015 general election will be online, and unless action is taken to restrain abuse of people’s personal information, things will get nasty.

1The legislation.gov.uk doesn’t provide updated (“consolidated”) versions of secondary legislation, so there’s no point in linking to their version of the regulations.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

4 Comments

Filed under consent, Data Protection, marketing, PECR, privacy notice

Tagged as , ,

February 5, 2015 · 7:16 am

Online privacy – a general election battleground

It’s becoming increasingly clear that one of the key battlegrounds in the 2015 General Election will be online. The BBC’s Ross Hawkins reports that the Conservatives are spending large amounts each month on Facebook advertising, and Labour and UKIP, while not having the means to spend as much, are ramping up their online campaigning. But, as Hawkins says

the aim is not to persuade people to nod thoughtfully while they stare at a screen. They want consumers of their online media to make donations or, even better, to get their friends’ support or to knock on doors in marginal constituencies…[but] for all the novelties of online marketing, email remains king. Those Tory Facebook invoices show that most of the money was spent encouraging Conservative supporters to hand over their email addresses. Labour and the Conservatives send emails to supporters, and journalists, that appear to come from their front benchers, pleading for donations

I know this well, because in July last year, after growing weary of blogging about questionable compliance with ePrivacy laws by all the major parties and achieving nothing, I set a honey trap: I submitted an email address to the Conservative, Labour, LibDem, Green, UKIP, SNP and Plaid Cymru websites. In each case I was apparently agreeing with a proposition (such as the particularly egregious LibDem FGM example)  giving no consent to reuse, and in each case there was no clear privacy notice which accorded with the Information Commissioner’s Office’s Privacy Notices Code of Practice (I do not, and nor does the ICO, at least if one refers to that Code, accept that a generic website privacy policy is sufficient in case like this). Since then, the fictional, and trusting but naive, Pam Catchers (geddit??!!) has received over 60 emails, from all parties contacted. A lot of them begin, “Friend, …” and exhort Pam to perform various types of activism. Of course, as a fictional character, Pam might have trouble enforcing her rights, or complaining to the ICO, but the fact is that this sort of bad, and illegal, practice, is rife.

To be honest, I thought Pam would receive more than this number of unsolicited emails (but I’m probably more cynical than her). But the point is that each of these emails was sent in breach of the parties’ obligations under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) which demands that recipients of electronic direct marketing communications must have given explicit consent prior to the sending. By extension, therefore, the parties are also in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), which, when requiring “fair” processing of personal data, makes clear that a valid privacy notice must be given in order to achieve this.

The ICO makes clear that promotion by a political party can constitute direct marketing, and has previously taken enforcement action to try to ensure compliance. It has even produced guidance for parties about their PECR and DPA obligations. This says

In recent years we have investigated complaints about political parties and referendum campaigners using direct marketing, and on occasion we have used our enforcement powers to prevent them doing the same thing again. Failure to comply with an enforcement notice is a criminal offence.

But by “recent” I think they are referring at least six years back.

A data controller’s compliance, or lack thereof, with data protection laws in one area is likely to be indicative of its attitude to compliance elsewhere. Surely the time has come for the ICO at least to remind politicians that online privacy rights are not to be treated with contempt?

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

2 Comments

Filed under consent, Data Protection, enforcement, Information Commissioner, marketing, PECR, privacy notice

Tagged as , ,

January 8, 2015 · 11:42 am

Data protection implications of sale of Tesco Clubcard company

 

News that Tesco is considering selling its loyalty card business Dunnhumby raises questions about what might happen to cardholders’ personal data

In 1995 the then Chairman of Tesco, Lord MacLaurin, reportedly said to the creators of the Tesco Clubcard scheme

What scares me about this is that you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years.

Since then the sophistication and power of data analytics have increased exponentially and Dunnhumby claims it analyses data from 770 million-plus customers, about 16.5 million of whom are – it seems – Tesco Clubcard members. Dunnhumby, as a data processor for Tesco, processes the personal data of those millions of members, so what happens if the business is sold? Does the customer database also get sold? If so, what are the data protection implications?

Sales of customer databases can be effected lawfully and in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), as the Information Commissioner’s Office explains in helpful guidance

When a database is sold, the seller must make sure that the buyer understands that they can only use the information for the purposes for which it was collected. Any use of this personal information should be within the reasonable expectations of the individuals concerned. So, when a database is sold, its use should stay the same or similar. For example, if the database contains information obtained for insurance, the database should only be sold to another insurance-based business providing similar insurance products. Selling it to a business for a different use is likely to be incompatible  with the original purpose and likely to go beyond the expectations of the individuals.

The operative words there are, I suggest “expectations of the individuals concerned”. “Reasonable expectations” are strongly linked to the first principle in Schedule One of the DPA, which requires that “personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully…”. The interpretative provisions in Part II of Schedule One explain that broadly, for processing to be fair, data subjects should be told who is doing the processing, and why. These provisions are the genesis of the “privacy notices” and “privacy policies” which so few of us take the time to read. But their Clubcard privacy policy is where things might become problematic for Tesco in the event that they propose to sell Dunhumby and cardholders’ data. As twitter user @NoDPISigma points out, the Customer Charter says

We would like to reassure you that your personal details are safe with us and will never be released to companies outside the Tesco Group for their marketing purposes

and the separate Privacy and Cookies Policy also says

Your personal information is safe with us and will never be released to companies outside the Tesco Group for their marketing purposes

Although at first blush it is difficult to see that as anything other than an unequivocal promise that cardholders’ personal data will never be sold, the rub is in the phrase “for their marketing purposes”. If the sale of Dunnhumby and cardholders’ data is to another company in order that that other company can continue to operate the Clubcard scheme on behalf of Tesco then, as long as that was all that the data continued to be used for, I don’t think it would be a release of personal data to a company for that company’s marketing purposes. If, however, the purchasing company intended to use the data for its own marketing purposes, then the sale might be a breach of the charter promise – and, in that event, it would be strongly arguable that the sale could give rise to a serious contravention of Tesco’s obligation (at section 4(4) of the DPA) to comply with the fairness principle.

And among those 16.5 million Clubcard holders there are likely to be some awkward so-and-sos who might bring legal challenges in those circumstances.

[This post was edited because in its first draft it failed properly to consider the issue of data controller/processor. Thanks to Rich Greenhill for prompting me into a redraft]

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

2 Comments

Filed under Data Protection, marketing

Tagged as , ,

December 5, 2014 · 8:09 am

PARKLIFE! (and a £70k monetary penalty)

In August this year I reported that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had effectively conceded it had no current powers to issue monetary penalties on spam texters. This was after the Upper Tribunal had indicated that in most cases the sending of such texts was not likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress (this being part of the statutory test for serving a monetary penalty notice (MPN) for a serious contravention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003) (PECR).

What I’d forgotten were the reports of highly distasteful and in some cases highly distressing texts sent in May to festival-goers by the organisers of the Parklife festival in Manchester’s Heaton Park. The texts didn’t disclose that they were from the event organisers, but instead purported to come from “Mum” and were advertising extra events at the festival.

Regulation 23 of PECR outlaws the sending of direct marketing texts (and other direct marketing electronic communications) where the sender’s identity has been disguised or concealed.

As the Manchester Evening News reported at the time receiving the texts in question left many recipients who had lost their mothers distressed and upset.

And so it came to pass that, as the same newspaper reveals today, the ICO investigated complaints about the marketing, and appears to have determined that the sending of the texts was a serious contravention of PECR regulation 23, and it was of a kind likely to cause substantial distress. The paper reveals that an MPN of £70000 has been served on the organisers, and the ICO has confirmed this on its website, and the MPN itself lists a number of the complaints made by affected recipients.

So, I, and the ICO’s Steve Eckersley, were wrong – powers to serve MPNs for spam texts do still currently exist, although it must be said that this was an exceptional case: most spam texts are irritating, rather than as callous and potentially distressing as these. And this is why the Ministry of Justice is, as I have previously discussed, consulting on lowering, or dropping altogether, the “harm threshold” for serving MPNs for serious PECR contraventions.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

Leave a comment

Filed under enforcement, Information Commissioner, marketing, monetary penalty notice, PECR, spam texts

October 29, 2014 · 5:27 pm

No harm done

Why does nobody listen to me?

Quite a few media outlets and commentators have picked up on the consultation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport I blogged about recently. The consultation is about the possibility of legislative change to make it easier for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)(ICO) to “fine” (in reality, serve a civil monetary penalty notice) on people or organisations who commit serious contraventions of ePrivacy law in sending unsolicited electronic marketing messages (aka spam calls, texts, emails etc).

However, almost every report I have seen has missed a crucial point. So, we have The Register saying “ICO to fine UNBIDDEN MARKETEERS who cause ‘ANXIETY’…Inconvenience, annoyance also pass the watchdog’s stress test”, and Pinsent Masons, Out-Law.com saying “Unsolicited marketing causing ‘annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety’ could result in ICO fine”. We even have 11KBW’s formidable Christopher Knight saying

the DCMS has just launched a consultation exercise on amending PECR with a view to altering the test from “substantial damage or distress” to causing “annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”

But none of these spot that the preferred option of DCMS, and the ICO is actually to go further, and give the ICO the power to serve a monetary penalty notice even when no harm has been shown at all

Remove the existing legal threshold of “substantial damage and distress” (this is the preferred option of both ICO and DCMS. There would be no need to prove “substantial damage and distress”, or any other threshold such as ‘annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety’…

So yes, this is a blog post purely to moan about the fact that people haven’t read my previous post. It’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.

UPDATE:

Chris Knight is so formidable that he’s both updated the Panopticon post and pointed out the oddness of option 3 being preferred when nearly all of the consultation paper is predicated on option 2 being victorious.

Leave a comment

Filed under Information Commissioner, marketing, monetary penalty notice, PECR, spam texts

Tagged as ,

October 25, 2014 · 11:48 am

DCMS consulting on lower threshold for “fining” spammers

UPDATE: 08.11.14

Rich Greenhill has spotted another odd feature of this consultation. Options one and two both use the formulation “the contravention was deliberate or the person knew or ought to have known that there was a risk that the contravention would occur”, however, option three omits the words “…or ought to have known”. This is surely a typo, because if it were a deliberate omission it would effectively mean that penalties could not be imposed for negligent contraventions (only deliberate or wilful contraventions would qualify). I understand Rich has asked DCMS to clarify this, and will update as and when he hears anything.

END UPDATE

UPDATE: 04.11.14

An interesting development of this story was how many media outlets and commentators reported that the consultation was about lowering the threshold to “likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”, ignoring in the process that the preferred option of DCMS and ICO was for no harm threshold at all. Christopher Knight, on 11KBW’s Panopticon blog kindly amended his piece when I drew this point to his attention. He did, however observe that most of the consultation paper, and DCMS’s website, appeared predicated on the assumption that the lower-harm threshold was at issue. Today, Rich Greenhill informs us all that he has spoken to DCMS, and that their preference is indeed for a “no harm” approach: “Just spoke to DCMS: govt prefers PECR Option 3 (zero harm), its PR is *wrong*”. How very odd.

END UPDATE

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced a consultation on lowering the threshold for the imposing of financial sanctions on those who unlawfully send electronic direct marketing. They’ve called it a “Nuisance calls consultation”, which, although they explain that it applies equally to nuisance text messages, emails etc., doesn’t adequately describe what could be an important development in electronic privacy regulation.

When, a year ago, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) upheld the appeal by spam texter Christopher Niebel against the £300,000 monetary penalty notice (MPN) served on him by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), it put the latter in an awkward position. And when the Upper Tribunal dismissed the ICO’s subsequent appeal, there was binding authority on the limits to the ICO’s power to serve MPNs for serious breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR). There was no dispute that, per the mechanism at section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), adopted by PECR by virtue of regulation 31, Niebel’s contraventions were serious and deliberate, but what was at issue was whether they were “of a kind likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress”. The FTT held that they were not – no substantial damage would be likely to arise and when it came to distress

the effect of the contravention is likely to be widespread irritation but not widespread distress…we cannot construct a logical likelihood of substantial distress as a result of the contravention.

When the Upper Tribunal agreed with the FTT, and the ICO’s Head of Enforcement said it had “largely [rendered] our power to issue fines for breaches of PECR involving spam texts redundant” it seemed clear that, for the time being at least, there was in effect a green light for spam texters, and, by extension, other spam electronic marketers. The DCMS consultation is in response to calls from the ICO, and others, such as the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Nuisance Calls, the Direct Marketing Association and Which for a change in the law.

The consultation proposes three options – 1) do nothing, 2) lower the threshold from “likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress” to “likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”, or 3) remove the threshold altogether, so any serious and deliberate (or reckless) contravention of the PECR provisions would attract the possibility of a monetary penalty. The third option is the one favoured by DCMS and the ICO.

If either of the second or third options is ultimately enacted, this could, I feel, lead to a significant reduction in the prevalence of spam marketing. The consultation document notes that (despite the fact that the MPN was overturned on appeal) the number of unsolicited spam SMS text message sent reduced by a significant number after the Niebel MPN was served. A robust and prominent campaign of enforcement under a legislative scheme which makes it much easier to impose penalties to a maximum of £500,000, and much more difficult to appeal them, could put many spammers out of business, and discourage others. This will be subject, of course, both to the willingness and the resources of the ICO. The consultation document notes that there might be “an expectation that [MPNs] would be issued by the ICO in many more cases than its resources permit” but the ICO has said (according to the document) that it is “ready and equipped to investigate and progress a significant number of additional cases with a view to taking greater enforcement action including issuing more CMPs”.

There appears to be little resistance (as yet, at least) to the idea of lowering or removing the penalty threshold. Given that, and given the ICO’s apparent willingness to take on the spammers, we may well see a real and significant attack on the scourge. Of course, this only applies to identifiable spammers in the domestic jurisdiction – let’s hope it doesn’t just drive an increase in non-traceable, overseas spam.

 

 

3 Comments

Filed under Data Protection, enforcement, Information Commissioner, Information Tribunal, marketing, monetary penalty notice, nuisance calls, PECR, spam texts, Upper Tribunal

Tagged as , ,

October 24, 2014 · 3:02 pm

The Crown Estate and behavioural advertising

A new app for Regent Street shoppers will deliver targeted behavioural advertising – is it processing personal data?

My interest was piqued by a story in the Telegraph that

Regent Street is set to become the first shopping street in Europe to pioneer a mobile phone app which delivers personalised content to shoppers during their visit

Although this sounds like my idea of hell, it will no doubt appeal to some people. It appears that a series of Bluetooth beacons will deliver mobile content (for which, read “targeted behavioural advertising”) to the devices of users who have installed the Regent Street app. Users will indicate their shopping preferences, and a profile of them will be built by the app.

Electronic direct marketing in the UK is ordinarily subject to compliance with The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (“PECR”). However, the definition of “electronic mail” in PECR is “any text, voice, sound or image message sent over a public electronic communications network or in the recipient’s terminal equipment until it is collected by the recipient and includes messages sent using a short message service”. In 2007 the Information Commissioner, upon receipt of advice, changed his previous stance that Bluetooth marketing would be caught by PECR, to one under which it would not be caught, because Bluetooth does not involve a “public electronic communications network”. Nonetheless, general data protection law relating to consent to direct marketing will still apply, and the Direct Marketing Association says

Although Bluetooth is not considered to fall within the definition of electronic mail under the current PECR, in practice you should consider it to fall within the definition and obtain positive consent before using it

This reference to “positive consent” reflects the definition in the Data Protection directive, which says that it is

any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed

And that word “informed” is where I start to have a possible problem with this app. Ever one for thoroughness, I decided to download it, to see what sort of privacy information it provided. There wasn’t much, but in the Terms and Conditions (which don’t appear to be viewable until you download the app) it did say

The App will create a profile for you, known as an autoGraph™, based on information provided by you using the App. You will not be asked for any personal information (such as an email address or phone number) and your profile will not be shared with third parties

autograph (don’t forget the™) is software which, in its words “lets people realise their interests, helping marketers drive response rates”, and it does so by profiling its users

In under one minute without knowing your name, email address or any personally identifiable information, autograph can figure out 5500 dimensions about you – age, income, likes and dislikes – at over 90% accuracy, allowing businesses to serve what matters to you – offers, programs, music… almost anything

Privacy types might notice the jarring words in that blurb. Apparently the software can quickly “figure out” thousands of potential identifiers about a user, without knowing “any personally identifiable information”. To me, that’s effectively saying “we will create a personally identifiable profile of you, without using any personally identifiable information”. The fact of the matter is that people’s likes, dislikes, preferences, choices etc (and does this app capture device information, such as IMEI?) can all be used to build up a picture which renders them identifiable. It is trite law that “personal data” is data which relate to a living individual who can be identified from those data or from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller. The Article 29 Working Party (made up of representatives from the data protection authorities of each EU member state) delivered an Opinion in 2010 on online behavioural advertising which stated that

behavioural advertising is based on the use of identifiers that enable the creation of very detailed user profiles which, in most cases, will be deemed personal data

If this app is, indeed, processing personal data, then I would suggest that the limited Terms and Conditions (which users are not even pointed to when they download the app, let alone be invited to agree them) are inadequate to mean that a user is freely giving specific and informed consent to the processing. And if the app is processing personal data to deliver electronic marketing failure to comply with PECR might not matter, but failure to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 brings potential liability to legal claims and enforcement action.

The Information Commissioner last year produced good guidance on Privacy in Mobile Apps which states that

Users of your app must be properly informed about what will happen to their personal data if they install and use the app. This is part of Principle 1 in the DPA which states that “Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully”. For processing to be fair, the user must have suitable information about the processing and they must to be told about the purposes

The relevant data controller for Regent Street Online happens to be The Crown Estate. On the day that the Queen sent her first tweet, it is interesting to consider the extent to which her own property company are in compliance with their obligations under privacy laws.

This post has been edited as a result of comments on the original, which highlighted that PECR does not, in strict terms, apply to Bluetooth marketing

4 Comments

Filed under consent, Data Protection, Directive 95/46/EC, Information Commissioner, marketing, PECR, Privacy, tracking

Tagged as , , , ,

August 21, 2014 · 7:46 pm

Red light for ICO spam text “fines”

A week ago I noted that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had effectively conceded that, since the Upper Tribunal’s decision in the Niebel case, it could not realistically serve monetary penalty notices (MPNs) on spam texters. I observed that

the result of the Niebel litigation has been to remove their powers to serve MPNs for spam texts, [with the ICO saying] it had “largely [rendered] our power to issue fines for breaches of PECR involving spam texts redundant”.

This perception has been reinforced by the press release today from the ICO, reporting a raid on a claims management call centre “thought to be connected to a spam text operation”. Information and hardware were seized in the raid, but the ICO says it

will now consider whether an enforcement notice compelling the organisation to comply with the rules regarding text marketing can be issued

Notably, no reference to an MPN is made. To recap, MPNs can be served under section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 to serve such a notice if there has been a serious contravention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) of a kind likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress. The Niebel litigation, in very broad terms, cast doubt on whether receiving spam texts could ever cause substantial damage or substantial distress (as opposed to, say, irritation).

Whether this Llanelli operation was in contravention of the law, and if so what sanctions will flow will no doubt be determined on the basis of the seized information and other information.

And although enforcement notices are serious sanctions, with breach of one being a criminal offence (although not a recordable one) whether people running spam texting operations see them as a real deterrent is another matter.

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Data Protection, Information Commissioner, marketing, monetary penalty notice, PECR, Upper Tribunal

August 13, 2014 · 10:52 am

Green light for spam texters – for now

The ICO has effectively conceded he has no current powers to issue monetary penalties on spam texters.

In June this year the Upper Tribunal dismissed the appeal by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) against the quashing of a £300,000 monetary penalty notice (the MPN) served on spam texter Christopher Niebel. The MPN had been issued pursuant to the ICO’s powers under section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 to serve such a notice if there has been a serious contravention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) of a kind likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress. The Upper Tribunal held that the First-tier Tribunal had not erred in law in finding that the ICO’s relevant interpretation of “distress” was unsustainable:

the tribunal took issue with the Commissioner’s guidance as to the meaning of “distress” and, in my opinion rightly so. According to that guidance, “Distress is any injury to feelings, harm or anxiety suffered by an individual” (at paragraph [12], emphasis added). The tribunal’s conclusion was that if this “involves the proposition that it is not possible to have ‘any injury to feelings’ which falls short of ‘distress’ then, it seems to us, that the definition is at odds with common experience and with the ordinary use of English [¶60]

As the law required evidence that Niebel’s company’s sending of spam texts had been of a kind likely to cause substantial distress, and as the ICO’s evidence did not match up to this, the MPN had been rightly quashed. Implicitly, the Upper Tribunal was suggesting that further MPNs of this kind would also not be sustainable, and, explicitly, it questioned whether, if Parliament wanted to give the ICO powers to financially punish spam texters, it would require a change in the law

[a] more profitable course of action, is for the statutory test to be revisited…a statutory test that was formulated in terms of e.g. annoyance, inconvenience and/or irritation, rather than “substantial damage or substantial distress”, might well have resulted in a different outcome.

To no real surprise, since the ICO lost this appeal, no further MPNs have been issued for spam texting (some have been served for spam telephone calls). Now the ICO, in a blog post by their Head of Enforcement Steve Eckersley has effectively conceded that the result of the Niebel litigation has been to remove their powers to serve MPNs for spam texts, saying it had “largely [rendered] our power to issue fines for breaches of PECR involving spam texts redundant”. And Eckersley picks up the call for a law change, confirming that there will be a consultation later this year (whether any of this will see results this side of the general election, however, is another question).  This call echoes one made by the Information Commissioner himself, who said in February

We have just got to lower that hurdle because I think if you ask most people they would say silent calls and unsolicited spam texts are one of the great curses of the age – and if the Information Commissioner can’t protect you it’s a poor lookout.
There are, of course, other strings to the ICO bow, and Eckersley refers to some of them
we are using our existing powers to hold companies to account and to disrupt their unlawful activities….and we are obtaining undertakings from and issuing enforcement notices, effectively cease-and-desist orders, to companies that breach PECR.
This sounds good, but leaves me rather puzzled: as the ICO has confirmed to me, no enforcement notices have been served and only one undertaking obtained, against companies or individuals who have sent spam texts in breach of PECR. Enforcement notices are a strong power – breach of one is a criminal offence – and only require the ICO to consider whether the PECR contravention has caused or is likely to cause any person damage or distress, not “substantial damage or substantial distress”. This lower threshold should make it much more difficult for enforcement to be resisted. Maybe some enforcement notices are on their way? One rather hopes so, because, for the moment, it looks like spam texters have received a green light.
EDITED TO ADD:
Tim Turner points out to me that a conviction for breach of an enforcement notice is not a recordable offence it will not make its way on to the Police National Computer, and will not therefore generally result in disclosure for, e.g. employment purposes. Tim’s view, and it is a compelling one, is that for a lot of spammers the threat of a minor conviction for breach of a legal notice is not one which is likely to dissuade them from their practice.

7 Comments

Filed under Data Protection, enforcement, Information Commissioner, Information Tribunal, marketing, monetary penalty notice, nuisance calls, PECR, Upper Tribunal

Tagged as , ,