The direct marketing industry has backed new Government plans to give consumers easy access to the information brand owners hold on them – such as transaction data held on the Tesco Clubcard database – heralding a new era of consumer control.
The move follows Coalition plans to beef-up the ‘midata’ scheme – first unveiled in April last year – with ministers launching a consultation into whether to make it a legal requirement for companies to supply people with information whenever they want it.
Consumers already have the legal right to request such information via the Data Protection Act but getting hold of it can take months and the information rarely comes in electronic form.
DMA executive director Chris Combemale said: “We welcome the progress in pushing forward the midata programme. Companies must now take the initiative to be open and transparent with consumers about the information they hold and how they use it.”
The DMA cites its own research, which shows 85% of consumers would prefer to hold their own personal data and exchange it with companies when they choose. It says more and more consumers view their personal data as a form of capital to be collected and traded for better service, better offers and better long-term benefits.
Combemale added: “Companies that catch up with this new consumer trend will have to innovate and outdo their competitors to offer the most compelling benefits to consumers to encourage them to share their information. This form of competition-based self-regulation will be the most effective way of giving consumers greater control over their data.”
John Hayes, a minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), said: “This is about empowerment. It’s about giving consumers the information which companies already collect to allow them to make more informed choices.
“If that kind of analysis – about marketing [and] transaction patterns – is of value to companies, it is likely to be of value to individuals.”
Norman Lamb, the Consumer Minister, said that giving customers the right to access their own transaction data “promises huge opportunities for both them and UK businesses.”
However, privacy group Big Brother Watch sounded a note of caution. Director Nick Pickles said: “Giving consumers better access to data held about them is clearly a good thing, but this shouldn’t be a trade-off that sees us surrender control of what happens with that information.
“There’s also the inevitable risk that this information will be accessed for increasingly spurious purposes, from divorce cases to public authority snoopers. The best way to protect people’s privacy is for information to not be collected in the first place and ‘midata’ must not undermine long-overdue improvements in consumer privacy protection.”
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