Leave.EU and Aaron Banks firm fined over unlawful marketing
The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined the Leave.EU campaign and backer Aaron Banks’ Eldon Insurance over unlawful marketing messages and will carry out a further audit of data protection practices.
The ICO announced the audit on Friday and issued a preliminary enforcement notice as well as three notices of intent to fine Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance. The ICO investigation also found that both groups were closely linked during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign.
The investigation revealed that Leave.EU had used Eldon Insurance’s custromers’ details to send almost 300,000 political marketing messages. For that breach Leave.EU was fined £15,000.
On the other hand Eldon Insurance carried out two unlawful direct marketing campaigns. The campaigns involved the sending of over one million emails to Leave.EU subscribers without sufficient consent. Leave.EU was fined £45,000 and Eldon Insurance was fined £60,000 for the breach.
Elizabeth Denham, information commissioner said: “It is deeply concerning that sensitive personal data gathered for political purposes was later used for insurance purposes; and vice versa. It should never have happened.
“We have been told both organisations have made improvements and learned from these events. But the ICO will now audit the organisations to determine how they are using customers’ personal information.”