The Information Commissioner’s Office of the United Kingdom ruled electronic marketing laws were breached in email campaigns by two entities in the runup to the Brexit referendum three years ago. In a statement issued on Friday, ICO said it fined the Leave.EU initiative and Eldon Insurance, trading as Go Skippy Insurance, £60,000 each on three accounts for sending messages to people without consent.
"It is deeply concerning that sensitive personal data gathered for political purposes was later used for insurance purposes; and vice versa... The ICO will now audit the organisations to determine how they are using customers’ personal information" even though both organizations claim they improved their conduct, said Elizabeth Denham, information commissioner. The review will include training activities and policies and procedures, the regulators said.
Leave.EU has used the company's client data to send nearly 300,000 emails, while information from the campaign's subscribers was used by Eldon for more than one million messages, the panel added.
