Delightful Ethical Digital

20th June 2018

Fat Beehive - GDPR - BT fined for sending five million spam emails

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined British Telecommunications (BT) £77,000

After all the excitement and rush of the GDPR deadline (and the thousands of organisations contacting you that you never remembered even using), the dust has started to settle and hopefully you’re all compliant.

If you have any concerns, questions or lingering web-related GDPR requirements, do give us a shout.

In the meantime, here’s a gentle reminder of a what can happen if you’re not playing ball…

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined British Telecommunications (BT) £77,000 for sending 4.9 million “nuisance” emails to customers in 2015 and 2016.

The company did not have its customers’ consent to send the emails promoting three charity initiatives: BT’s ‘My Donate’ platform, Giving Tuesday and Stand up to Cancer.

Though the ICO acknowledged that BT did not deliberately break the rules and there was no financial benefit to the company the ICO determined that all of the emails constituted marketing and “were not simply service messages”.

ICO head of enforcement, Steve Eckersley, said:

“Organisations have a responsibility to ensure they are acting within the law. Where they do not, the ICO can and will take action. This particular investigation was prompted by a concerned member of the public. We investigated the matter and uncovered the full extent of this activity which shows how important it is for people to report nuisance emails.”

Fat Beehive GDPR Statement (82kb)

Fat Beehive GDPR Compliance (98kb)

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