On 19 April 2017, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined a finance brokerage firm, Monevo Ltd, £40,000 under section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 for sending unsolicited direct marketing texts. This constituted a serious contravention of regulation 22 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/2426) (PECR).

An investigation by the ICO, prompted by numerous complaints from the public, found that Monevo Ltd sent 44,172 marketing texts without obtaining prior consent from the recipients. Monevo Ltd’s telemarketing affiliate had obtained the personal details used to send the messages from competition and money saving websites. None of the privacy notices on these websites indicated the data would be used for sending marketing text messages by Monevo Ltd.

Chris Evans, Consultant

This briefing was posted on 26 April 2017.