A little while ago, I noticed an interesting story on the website of the Fundraising Regulator. They reported a case where a woman had applied for a job with a charity and subsequently, she started to receive marketing from them. She asked for her details to be removed from their donor list, and the request […]
One of the features of the GDPR which is superficially similar to the old Data Protection Act but turns out to be quite different is the requirement to provide information about how personal data is being used. The word ‘transparency’ is an inherent part of the GDPR first principle, whereas it was absent from the […]
Even before the fundraising sector met its Data Protection nemesis in December, with two charities cruelly hung out on the rack, forbidden ever to raise funds again (CORRECTION: given two of the smallest fines in Data Protection history and not forbidden from doing anything), various blogs, and tweets showed that anguished tin-rattlers were confused about what they were accused of. […]
Some senior figures in the charity sector have sought to deal with the Information Commissioner’s recent enforcement against the RSPCA and the British Heart Foundation by suggesting that the ICO’s action is disproportionate and unfair. The fundraiser sorry, academic, Ian MacQuillin has written two blogs which touch on the theme, while a few days ago, Robert Meadowcroft, the […]
The bedrock of Data Protection is fairness. You cannot gain consent without fairness. Your interests are not legitimate interests if they are secret interests. Unless you have an exemption or you claim that telling the person represents disproportionate effort (i.e. the effort of telling outweighs the actual impact), you have to tell the person whose data […]
Ever since the Daily Mail first started to report on the nefarious fundraising activities of certain large charities, confusion and contradiction have reigned supreme. We have had fundraising codes of practice confused with the law, constant claims that the ICO has changed the law (which is something they haven’t done, and couldn’t do anyway), and the […]
One of the irritating things about the introduction of the EU Data Protection Regulation, the timing and final shape of which is still up in the air, is the way in which marketing companies are buzzing around, fearful of what the changes might mean. Most of them fret about the perceived emphasis on unambiguous consent, […]
