ICO fines charities with a total of 43,000 GBP

The ICO just released a statement saying that investigations have shown that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, RSPCA, and the British Heart Foundation, BHF, did not act according to the Data Protection Act.

The statement explaines that these charities used to screen donors for wealth in order to increase their donations.

“The charities also traced and targeted new or lapsed donors by piecing together personal information obtained from other sources” is stated in the report. Furthermore, “they traded personal details with other charities creating a massive pool of donor data for sale. Donors were not informed of these practices, and so were unable to consent or object.”

Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, fined both charities, the RSPCA 25,000 GBP and BHF 18,000 GBP. She explained that the reason for the fining is also due to the fact that “This widespread disregard for people’s privacy will be a concern to donors, but so will the thought that the contributions people have made to good causes could now be used to pay a regulator’s fine for their charity’s misuse of personal information”.