Direct marketing

This subtopic provides practical guidance, tools and templates to assist commercial organisations based in the UK with direct marketing data protection obligations. It reflects the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR 2003) and covers telephone marketing, postal marketing, email marketing and other electronic mail direct marketing.

This subtopic takes account of direct marketing guidance published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on service messages, refer-a-friend campaigns, regulatory communications, market research including selling under the guise of research (sugging), tracking pixels, marketing lists, suppression lists and preference centres. It reflects the ICO’s:

1. •

   Direct marketing guidance, and

2. •

   Guidance on direct marketing using live calls and Guidance on direct marketing using electronic mail

It also reflects the ICO’s draft Direct marketing code of practice, but is subject to change if the final Code diverges from the draft.

The guidance and tools in this subtopic include: