DMA welcomes government data reforms published today

The DMA welcomes the government’s consultation response and supports many of the proposed legislative amendments. The proposals will establish a better balance between data-driven innovation, economic growth, and privacy protections across the UK. The government response to the Data: A New Direction consultation was published at 7am this morning.

Our data-driven marketing community, consisting of nearly 1000 organisations large and small, support many of the key reforms, such as:

• Increased consumer protection from rogue cold callers through increased fines – the DMA has strongly campaigned to further protect customers and vulnerable citizens from rogue callers for many years.
• Extension of the soft-opt in for email to charities and other not-for-profit organisations – this will help to improve their engagement with donors and volunteers.
• Removal of the consent requirement for audience measurement cookies – this will reduce the number of pop-up banners, especially for websites that are advertisement free and that don’t use third-party cookies.
• Maintaining the opportunity for customers to seek a human review of an automated decision that creates a ‘legal’ effect – this is a key protection and safeguard of consumer rights.

“The DMA strongly supports the government’s proposed reforms, which will establish a better balance between data-driven innovation, economic growth, and privacy protections across the UK. A number of issues that the DMA community highlighted in our consultation response have been addressed by the government, which will enable further innovation in customer engagement, especially for charity fundraising,” said Chris Combemale, CEO of the DMA. “However, not every recommendation made by our member organisations has been adopted, so we will continue to seek greater clarity in the final legislative texts around the use of legitimate interests, particularly by giving legal certainty to Recital 47.”

The full government response can be found here.