Firm fined for illegal sale of new mothers’ data to Labour

LABOUR targeted new and expectant mothers during the election after buying information on one million people from a company that broke data protection rules, it emerged yesterday.

The information watchdog has confirmed that it will be auditing Labour and 10 other political parties’ data sharing practices after it fined a data firm £140,000 for “illegally collecting and selling” their information.

Lifecycle Marketing, also known as Emma’s Diary, failed to disclose that the personal information collected on the mothers would be used for political marketing, which the Information Commissioner’s Office said could have caused “substantial distress”.

The information was purchased by the credit reference agency Experian, which then fed it into a database which Labour used to profile new mothers.

The party then used the data to send letters to women in 106 parliamentary constituencies, many of which were marginal seats.

According to Lifecycle Marketing, the information provided would have been used to send out targeted marketing, for example Labour’s policy to protect Sure Start centres.

Whilst the report provides no evidence to suggest that Labour knew how the data was obtained, in its political guidance manual, the watchdog states that parties must “be sure that the third party has obtained the data fairly and lawfully”.

A Labour spokesman last night refused to comment when asked whether the party knew how the data from Lifecycle Marketing had been obtained.

They said: “We have neither bought nor used Emma’s Diary data since the 2017 General Election and we are in the process of reviewing our approach to acquiring data from third parties.”

The ICO report states that some of the women affected could “reasonably feel misled” and may not have consented to sharing their data if they had known it would be used for “profiling for political ends”. It added that some may have been “strongly opposed to being targeted” based on “particular family circumstances”, adding that it could be considered “invasive”.

“This distress is likely to have been exacerbated by the fact that if focused on the affected data subjects’ status as new mothers, as well as on their young children,” it continues.

Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner, said: “All organisations involved in political campaigning must use personal information in ways that are transparent, lawful and understood by the UK public.”

 A leading union chief last night urged Jeremy Corbyn to confront Labour’s anti-semitism crisis head on by adopting an internationally recognised definition which has bitterly divided his party. Tim Roache, the general secretary of GMB, warned that it was “abundantly clear” that Labour’s widely criticised code of conduct should be rewritten.

His intervention has ratcheted up pressure on Mr Corbyn to act, following claims that Jon Lansman, one of the Labour leader’s closest allies, has also been lobbying him to change course.