Charities fined for sharing data on millions of donors
ELEVEN of Britain’s biggest charities were yesterday fined for illegally sharing or using the personal details of millions of their donors.
Household names including Oxfam, Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support were penalised after they misused data.
The Information Commissioner’s Office announced they had breached the Data Protection Act.
Investigators found that some charities had targeted donors by piecing together personal information obtained from other sources.
Others had traded personal details with different charities creating a “large pool of donor data for sale”.
The other eight named charities to be fined were the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Cancer Support UK (formerly Cancer Recovery Foundation UK), the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, The Royal British Legion, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, WWF-UK and Battersea Dogs’ and Cats’ Home.
Announcing the fines, which vary from £6,000 to £18,000, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham called on the charities to clean up their act.
She said: “Millions of people will have been affected by these charities’ contravention of the law. They will be upset to learn the way their personal information has been analysed and shared by charities they trusted with their details and their donations.
“No charity wants to alienate their donors. And we acknowledge the role charities play in the fabric of British society. But charities must follow the law.”
ICO investigators found many of the charities secretly screened millions of donors so they could target them for additional funds.
The charities were investigated as part of a wider operation sparked by reports about repeated and significant pressure on supporters to contribute.
Last night some of the 11 organisations fined either apologised or defended their actions.
Sir Harpal Kumar, of Cancer Research UK, said: “Cancer Research UK has not used supporters’ data in ways which we believed were incompatible with their desire to help us beat cancer sooner. Our supporters have consistently told us that they want us to use our funds efficiently and only send them information that is most likely to interest them. That is what we have tried to do but the ICO has ruled that we were not clear enough. I sincerely apologise for this.”
Lynda Thomas, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “We take this fine very seriously. We are dedicated to supporting millions of people affected by cancer every year and we apply the highest of standards to all of our work.”
Mark Goldring, of Oxfam GB, said: “Oxfam places the highest importance on our relationship with our supporters and has always acted in good faith in attempting to follow both good practice and the law as we understood it.”