Tempcover Ltd – €99,450 Fine (United Kingdom, 2022)

Tempcover Ltd is a company that provides short term motor insurance and is the data controller. Mobile UK is an entity representing the interests of mobile subscribers in the UK. Mobile UK has a Spam Reporting Service, and subscribers can report a spam message by forwarding the spam message to Mobile UK. Mobile UK compiles the spam reports on a monthly basis and provides a report to the ICO. In May 2020, upon analysing the monthly reports provided by Mobile UK, the ICO ascertained “that between 1 November 2019 and 18 May 2020 there were a total of 13 complaints received from which Tempcover could be identified; of these, 12 were made via the 7726 service, and 1 was made directly to the Commissioner.” Accordingly, the ICO initiated an investigation against Tempcover. Before the ICO, Tempcover submitted the following: 1. It sent direct marketing text messages and subscribers could see that they were sent by Tempcover. 2. A total of 1905,776 direct marketing text messages were sent between 26 May 2019 and 26 May 2020. However, it had the data only from 26 November 2019 to 26 May 2020 as per its data retention policy. 3. It had obtained the data of subscribers directly from them when they had sought to obtain a quotation from Tempcover’s website. It claimed that the subscribers got a clear link to its privacy policy and terms and conditions which state: “By submitting your information to the Tempcover Site (“Our Site”) you are consenting to the processing of your information by us and our agents in accordance with this Privacy Policy. By obtaining a quote from us, you consent to Tempcover contacting you, by email and/or SMS, with details of our new products, services and promotions. You can opt out from this at any time by contacting us on contactus@tempcover.com or following the ‘unsubscribe/opt-out’ link in your email or SMS.” 4. Before the data provided by subscribers could get captured, they had to click on “'AGREE AND CONTINUE” to show their acceptance to priva