March 5, 2024 at 04:35AM
Penny Appeal, a charity providing aid to crisis-hit countries, has been ordered by the Information Commissioner’s Office to cease sending unsolicited texts after dispatching over 460,000 messages to 52,000 people without consent. Despite prior warnings, the charity was found to still be sending illegal marketing texts, prompting the ICO to take decisive action.
Meeting Takeaways:
– The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ordered Penny Appeal to cease sending unsolicited marketing texts due to the charity’s dispatch of more than 460,000 unsolicited texts to 52,000 individuals, despite lacking consent or opt-out.
– The ICO received 354 complaints, many stating that opt-out requests were ignored and described the messages as “intrusive.”
– Penny Appeal had failed to record users’ opt-out requests, transmitted messages to anyone that had interacted with the charity in the past five years, and had been engaged with the ICO since 2020 regarding similar complaints.
– Penny Appeal has 30 days to stop sending marketing communications without valid consent, and the ICO aims to remind all charities of their responsibility to ensure valid consent for direct marketing messages.
– Head of investigations at the ICO, Andy Curry, emphasized the need for valid consent when sending marketing messages and the responsibility of all organizations to ensure they have valid consent to contact recipients.
– Charities, along with commercial organizations, can face consequences for breaching data protection regulations and must act in accordance with the law.