Agency Marketing Improvement has carried out previous tests in
2003 and 2005. This third survey questioned 50 companies from the
FTSE 100 list of the UK's biggest publicly quoted firms.
It found that though 94% of the companies had adequately
notified the Information Commissioner of their processing of
information, 60% did not "understand their obligations" because in
only 40% of cases did the first point of customer contact, the
corporate switchboard, understand what a data protection request
was.
The question asked at switchboard level was: "My name and
details appear on marketing databases in your corporation. I would
like to know whom to speak to so that I can check that the details
you hold on me are correct, please." The question was repeated at
each destination to which the call was forwarded in each
company.
The survey also found that 25% of the surveyed companies had no
privacy policy published on their websites. However, Struan
Robertson, a technology lawyer with Pinsent Masons, the law firm
behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that there was no legal obligation to
publish such a policy.
"Users expect to see a privacy policy, and it certainly is
recommended for a website, but you don't need one to comply with
privacy laws in the UK," said Robertson. "Instead, our laws require
that you give certain privacy information wherever a user's
personal details are collected, for example on the page where they
register for your newsletter."
"It's wrong to conclude from the absence of a privacy policy
that a company is failing to comply with data protection laws," he
said.
The study said that there had been clear improvement in the
attitude of major companies to data protection legislation in the
four years since the first study, but that companies could do far
more in the area.
"Corporations are no longer simply ignoring the law when
compared to our earlier studies," said the Marketing Improvement
report. "However, we believe that it is fair to say that most are
adopting a minimalist approach. We suspect that there are two
reasons behind this: firstly, most consumers actually care very
little and are easily fobbed off; secondly the downside of breaking
the law is minimal."
The report found that just 20% of the companies surveyed have
implemented security technology such as the https security standard
on their websites when they collect user information.
Though Marketing Improvement says that this costs just £500 and
the low take up demonstrates how little interest companies have in
protecting users' data, Robertson said that this is not necessarily
the case.
"Companies are required by the Data Protection Act to have
adequate technical and organisational measures protecting their
data collections," said Robertson. "What is adequate for a website
should be gauged by looking at what solutions are available and
what they cost. The Data Protection Act goes on to say that you
should balance the harm that might result against the nature of the
data to be protected."
"If you're taking credit card details through your site, you
must secure that collection. If you're taking job applications, you
should, and the Information Commissioner has said as much. But if
you're taking email addresses through a web form, the level of risk
is lower," he said.
"The cost of securing a server is less than it once was. If you
can implement https cheaply, it's well worth doing. But that won't
be £500 for all sites. Your website might use a content management
system that wasn't designed with secure forms in mind. Making that
change can cost a lot more than a few hundred pounds," he said.
The report concluded that any failure of companies to deal
properly with data protection is counter-productive, because it
drives consumers to refuse to participate in marketing
programmes.
"We would suggest that the approach currently taken by the UK’s
largest companies is actually self-defeating," it said. "It
diminishes trust in organisations, which is reflected in plummeting
response rates and soaring levels of sign up to the telephone and
mail preference services."
"Companies may not yet be seeing it in their bottom lines, but
consumers are voting with their willingness to listen and accept
marketing messages," said the report. "Those businesses that fail
to heed this will find their cost of doing business accelerates
faster than that of their competition who take these matters
seriously."
