The ICO must investigate a Reform UK ‘competition’ which asks the public to hand over details of their voting preferences in order to be eligible to win their energy bills being paid for a year. Digital campaigners, Open Rights Group have outlined a number of ways that the supposed competition breaches data protection law.

Mariano delli Santi, Legal and Policy Officer at Open Rights Group said:

“Reform are asking the public to hand over sensitive data about their voting habits without being transparent about how it will be used. This is a clear breach of transparency obligations under UK data protection law. Nothing in their privacy policy suggests they are not acting unlawfully in many other ways.”

“Political opinions are among the most sensitive types of personal data, and voters must be able to engage in campaigns without feeling pressured to trade their privacy for the chance of material benefit. The ICO must investigate and take a stand against political parties exploiting data in this way.

“Aside from the potential breach of data protection law, offering financial incentives in exchange for people’s political views risks turning democratic participation into a data-harvesting exercise. Free and fair elections depend on trust, transparency, and genuine consent not competitions that blur the line between campaigning and profiling.”

Reacting to the ICO suggestion that concerned members of the public should raise a complaint with Reform UK, Mariano delli Santi, Legal and Policy Officer at Open Rights Group, said:

“The ICO statement is unacceptable. Reform UK has already stated, publicly, that they do not think they’re doing anything wrong, despite all evidence of the contrary. By asking people to contact Reform, the ICO are sending the public off a dead track.

There is clear evidence that the law is been breached. The ICO have a statutory duty to monitor and ensure compliance with UK data protection law. Instead of doing their job, the ICO are telling to the public to “go figure it out themselves”.

Abusing personal data for electoral purposes can erode the integrity of the electoral process. The ICO refusal to fulfill their duty and carry out much needed oversight marks yet another institutional failure, which risks affecting the May elections.”

How Reform is breaching data protection law

There is no specific privacy policy for the price draw, only a link to Reform’s general privacy policy. This policy does not explain how Reform uses personal data or comply with the law, but only states that they promise to be compliant.

There is no way to know what they will do with the data they collect beyond adjudicating the draw. This is a breach of transparency, and may be an indication that they’re also unlawfully repurposing the data collected for other electoral purposes.

Reform UK doesn’t explicitly identify a legal basis for processing data given via the draw. Its an educated guess that they are relying on contractual obligations for most of the data collection, and on consent for direct marketing. At the very least, it’s a failure to comply with transparency obligations, and it’s potentially a breach of the requirement to process data lawfully as well.

Reform are asking people who enter the competition to provide special category data. Specifically, information about how they voted in the past and how they expect to vote in the future. They do not identify a legal basis for asking this. They may argue that they are asking for explicit consent, but entrants have to hand over this information in order to enter the competition so there isn’t really a choice, explicit or otherwise.

In their T&Cs, they give entrants the right to object to their name being published if they win the draw, but they ask them to do so before the price is adjudicated. This makes the freedom to exercise this objection questionable, as entrants could fear that they will be disadvantaged if they do so. The T&Cs also give full discretion to Reform UK to decide how to adjudicate the price.