Data protection office issues warnings to two Irish charities
Howard Lake | 3 September 2013 | News
The Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland has issued formal warnings to two charities over the alleged improper use of contact details of people who have donated by text, according to the Irish Times.
The Commissioner did not name the two charities but the Irish Times claims that they are World Vision and Barretstown. It says that it has also been in contact with six other charities who subsequently changed their campaigns to comply with the law.
The Commissioner said it had notified the two charities about its concerns but the "charities decided not to take our advices" (sic). The law requires people contacted by phone or text to opt in to be listed in marketing databases.
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The Commissioner was concerned that advertisements by charities for text donations which stated that by texting, an individual was consenting to be placed on a marketing database, do not comply with data protection legislation. If a charity added a donor to a database without specific opt-in consent and then made follow-up marketing contact, whether by text or phone, then it could be committing a criminal offence.
The texting service used by the charities concerned was provided by the UK-based Like Charity company which claims to return 100% of donations to charity. The Commissioner’s office says it had told Like Charity what the requirements of the law are.
Like Charity's John Kyne told UK Fundraising: "Likecharity says that mobile technology has a significant role to play in how charities engage with supporters and stresses to charities using the platform the importance of structuring campaigns to comply with the requirements of the law".
Photo: data protection on mobile phone by Maksim Kabakou on Shutterstock.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.