The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has revealed that it is to monitor more than 400 companies due to suspicions that they are using customers’ personal details in order to promote certain websites that offer gambling services and content.
The campaign is part of a larger investigation carried out by the Investigation Commissioner’s Office aimed at spam texts that have lately been sent in the gambling sector.
The Anti-Spam Investigations Manager at ICO David Clancy commented on the regulator’s actions, saying that companies must comply with the law whenever it comes to using customers’ personal data. He said that making efforts to blame another party or simply not knowing the law was no excuse for such behaviour.
Mr. Clancy explained that the public expect firms should always take into account the ways they use to receive and use personal information, especially when they are having their marketing campaigns via e-mail, phone calls or text messages. He said that the companies that failed to be accountable for these part of their policy risked to be imposed certain enforcement actions by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Now, the regulator which is the UK’s independent body which upholds information rights in the public interest, is to address some companies demanding them to reveal the ways they use customers’ personal information as well as how they had got it. In addition, the marketing policy of the companies will also be investigated, as long as sending certain marketing texts to their customers is concerned.
The Investigation Commissioner’s Office also revealed that companies that fail to comply with the law could face enforcement action, including a fine of £500,000 imposed. In case that the businesses do not respond to the information request, then the ICO could legally demand for the information to be provided.
The companies which have been addressed by the ICO are known as ones involved in affiliate marketing, or in other words, they are known for paying to certain organisations that are responsible for bringing them new customers. Recently, the gambling industry in the UK have become an area of particular interest to the Investigation Commissioner’s Office, especially due to some problems associated with affiliate marketing campaigns used by the companies to attract new customers.
The ICO has provided companies with some pieces of advice on how to avoid sending spam text messages while trying to recruit new customers. On the regulator’s website, there is also a special online tool which people could use in order to report spam texts they have received.
In addition, earlier in November, the Information Commissioner’s Office has launched a new code of practice which includes some rules regarding the organisations and their methods of explaining to customers how exactly they collect and use their personal information.
- Author
Daniel Williams
