Labour bought data on one million mums before election
THE Labour Party bought data on a million new and expectant mothers and their children from a baby club ahead of the 2017 election, it was revealed yesterday.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has said it plans to fine a publication called Emma’s Diary £140,000 for the infraction. Emma’s Diary describes itself as the ‘most widely circulated mother-and-baby publication’, distributing 70,000 copies each year. Steve Wood, deputy information commissioner, said the ICO had ‘really significant concerns about how Emma’s Diary was gathering the data, particularly involving mothers in hospital’.
In May 2017, one month before the general election, the company provided one million records to data-broking firm Experian, according to the ICO.
Each record gave the mother’s name, address, date of birth of mother and child and how many children under five were present in the home.
Experian loaded this into a database used by Labour for direct marketing in 106 different parliamentary seats. It was deleted after the election.
In exchange for registering with Emma’s Diary, mothers receive shop vouchers, free gifts and pregnancy tips.
There is no suggestion Experian or Labour breached data protection legislation. The ICO said it was likely affected individuals would be distressed their children’s data had been used in an election campaign without their consent.
They did note this was the first time Emma’s Diary had shared data with a political party and their reputation would be tarnished by the revelations.
Labour said: ‘We have neither bought nor used Emma’s Diary data since the 2017 general election and will be reviewing our approach to acquiring data from third parties.’
Lifecycle Marketing, the trading name of Emma’s Diary, said: ‘We have always sought to fully comply with our data protection obligations. We are deeply disappointed by the ICO’s decision to publish a report including details of enforcement action intended to be taken against Lifecycle Marketing.’
‘We are deeply disappointed’