Saga Personal Finance Limited – €87,750 Fine (United Kingdom, 2021)

The ICO received a number of complaints regarding unsolicited email marketing. These were sent on behalf of Saga Personal Finance Limited (hereafter 'SPF') by different partner companies, so it launched an investigation into SPF's data practices. The company is a subsidiary of Saga Group Limited, which received a similar fine on the same day for another subsidiary's direct marketing practices. First, it sent a letter to the Saga Group requesting information "including details of Saga Group's Partners/Affiliates, websites from which consent for marketing was obtained together with evidence of that consent, and a description of any due diligence carried out with respect to the data used by Saga Group". The company replied, informing the ICO that the marketing content was indeed sent out by partners on behalf of SPF "using a database of individuals who had opted in to receiving marketing materials from third parties either via the Partners' websites or via websites operated by their sub-contractors". No personal data was actually transferred from the company, but it exercised total control over the content to comply with FCA requirements. The targeting and recipients was nonetheless controlled by its partners. Then, the ICO reviewed whether the consent on which the email marketing was based was legitimately obtained. It found that SPF was not named on any of the privacy policies the users of different websites agreed to. Some consent statements did not even inform the individuals agreeing to them that they would receive any third party marketing. The ICO held that SPF was in breach of Regulation 22 PECR because it instigated the transmission of the 28,523,745 unsolicited direct marketing messages sent and failed to obtain valid consent from individuals who received them. The breach was serious and negligent, respectively due to the high number of emails sent and lack of steps taken by the company to prevent it. It stated that while SPF relied on 'indirect consent' f