Labour falls foul of privacy laws with automatic electioneering calls

The ICO has issued the Party with an enforcement notice ordering it not to make unauthorised calls again. A breach of that order is a criminal offence.

The Conservative, Scottish National and Liberal Democrat parties have all been served with ICO notices in the past about their use of unsolicited calls.

Labour used paid-for lists of phone numbers to make automatic, pre-recorded calls to 495,000 numbers in areas it believed to be Labour-supporting in the run up to local and European elections last year. The calls featured a recording of soap actress Liz Dawn encouraging people to vote in the elections.

The ICO said that the making of the calls to people without their prior consent was a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which are the UK implementation of an EU Directive.

It also said that the calls breached the Regulations by not providing the name of and an address and phone number for the Labour Party.

The ICO notice orders Labour to refrain from making any more calls to people without their consent and follows the ICO's decision that the calls did constitute direct marketing.

"The message was intended to promote the Labour Party’s electoral cause by encouraging Labour Party supporters to vote and, as such, the message did fall within the definition of marketing," said the enforcement notice.

"The ICO has consistently made clear that the promotion of a political party counts as marketing," said ICO deputy commissioner David Smith. "We have previously issued detailed guidance to all major political parties on this subject. The Labour Party has breached privacy rules by making automated marketing calls to individuals who have not consented to receiving such calls."

"The fact that the calls were targeted at what were believed to be Labour supporting areas confirmed our view that they were designed to promote the Labour Party’s electoral cause by encouraging Labour supporters to vote. Automated calls can cause annoyance and disruption which is why it is so important for organisations making such calls to gain the consent of individuals," he said.

Labour made the calls despite a previous warning from the ICO. In 2007 a member of the public complained to the ICO that it had received a call without their permission from Labour, again featuring Liz Dawn. Labour then agreed to stop making calls based on that or a similar script.

But last year another member of the public and the Scottish National Party (SNP) complained about the use of more recorded calls, leading to the current ICO sanction.

The ICO said that it had produced specific guidance for political parties about what the Data Protection Act and PECR meant for their electioneering activities.

The ICO served an enforcement notice on the SNP and the Conservative Party in 2005 and on the Liberal Democrat Party in 2008, all in relation to automated phone calls.