The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating a “small number of complaints” about the Telegraph’s email urging people to vote Conservative.
The email, signed by editor Chris Evans and including links to the newspaper’s election-day leader article, other political coverage and an offer for a free 45-day digital subscription, was sent to the newspaper’s database of emails on the eve of the election.
Some recipients took to Twitter to complain that they either did not know how the Telegraph had got their email address or saying they had only signed up for specific emails such as its technology or finance newsletters.
— Harriet Smart (@harrietlcsmart) May 7, 2015Eew how have you got my email address @Telegraph - I'm not a 'reader' of yours pic.twitter.com/TsSextE7oJ
The email contained a disclaimer saying that recipients had either “agreed to receive marketing messages by email from Telegraph Media Group” or “signed up for this newsletter”.
The regulator is assessing whether the email breaches either the Data Protection Act or the privacy and electronic communications regulations, which cover electronic marketing including calls, emails and texts.
Some of the Telegraph’s selection of newsletters provide the ability to opt-out of marketing messages, however others, including the technology newsletter, do not.
Sending the email to people who had not indicated they were happy to receive other messages would appear to breach the Telegraph’s privacy policy, which states that if there are no opt-in or opt-out boxes on a signup process “it’s because we will not use your information for any other purpose than that for which you give it (e.g. to administer a subscription).”
A Telegraph spokesperson said: “The Telegraph’s email leader, urging our readers to vote for the Conservatives, was sent to our customer database and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“If any readers did receive this email in error, we will, of course, take steps to make sure this does not happen again.”
A decision from the ICO is not expected for at least a few weeks.