Labour paid for illegal data on new parents

A MARKETING firm illegally sold families’ personal information to Labour before the 2017 general election, the data watchdog has said.

Data relating to 1,065,200 people – pregnant women, new parents and children – was passed on without their consent, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said.

The ICO intends to impose a £140,000 fine on Lifecycle Marketing, the company behind the Emma’s Diary website, which offers expecting parents health advice and gifts.

The records supplied to the Labour Party included the name of the parent who had joined the website, their home address, whether they had young children, and the birth dates of the mother and children.

Buckinghamshire-based Lifecycle, which the ICO said knew the data would be used for a mail campaign promoting Labour’s familyfriendly policies, denied any errors were made.

The data was given out through brokers Experian Marketing Services in May 2017.

The data watchdog said the penalty notice had been

revealed because it believed in this case that there was an “overriding public interest”.

Parties have in the past have bought personal information off brokers to target people for their campaigns, but under data protection laws, appropriate consent must be obtained.

The Labour Party said it welcomed the ICO’S report.

In a statement, Lifecycle

Marketing said it disputed the ICO’S findings and said the company had not been given an opportunity to respond before the penalty was revealed.

The penalty notice issued to the company follows the announcement on Tuesday that the ICO intends to fine Facebook £500,000 for its part in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

It is one of a series of enforcement actions the ICO has taken after it launched an investigation in March 2017 into the use of personal data for political purposes.