FINE FROM ICO ABOUT NUISANCE MARKETING TEXTS

07.12.2020

The Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) announced on 04.12.2020 that an administrative fine imposed on OSL Financial Consultancy Limited (OSL) for sending 174,342 nuisance marketing messages without any legal basis. 

ICO started the investigation about the mortgage and loans broker, which trade as MortgageKey, due to the complaints about OSL that had sent to the spam text reporting service.

Even though OSL relied on the previous consents obtained from its customers, ICO stated that OSL had gathered personal data from people who had contacted them via their website to obtain a quote and then used the data for marketing purposes. Therefore, a fine of £ 50,000 was imposed on the Company on the grounds that valid consent did not obtain from the data owners regarding the commercial use of their data and that the option in or out opt was not provided. 

Besides the fine, ICO once again emphasized the consent criteria applicable in the field of electronic marketing; consent must be freely given and it must not be a condition of receiving a service.

You can find the text of the announcement here.

Should you have any queries and/or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr