UK Information Commissioner fines parenting blog Emma's Diary

In 2018, the UK Information Commissioner's Office fined Emma's Diary, a  site offering pregnancy and childcare advice owned by Lifecycle Marketing (Mother and Baby) Ltd, £140,000 for collecting and selling personal information belonging to more than 1 million people without disclosing in the site's privacy policy how it would be used. Although Lifecycle denied the allegations, the ICO found that the company sold the data to Experian Marketing Services to build into profiles for use by the Labour Party, which targeted mothers in marginal seats with direct mail during the 2017 election campaign stating the party's intention to protect Sure Start children's centres. The case was part of the ICO's larger investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes. 

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2018/08/emma-s-diary-fined-140-000-for-selling-personal-information-for-political-campaigning/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/11/labour-bought-data-on-more-than-1m-mums-and-their-children-emmas-diary

tags: UK, Information Commissioner, regulatory action, politics, data mining, UK Labour, Experian
Writer: ICO; David Pegg
Publication: ICO blog; Guardian
Publication date: 2018-08-09; 2018-07-11