This time last year, Lawgistics were very busy trying to re-educate businesses who had been told to rely on consent for marketing.
We warned about bad advice which was being given out by ‘experts’ who were advising people to get consent from everyone on their marketing lists.
At one point, we even wondered if it was us who had got it wrong as we seemed to be a lone voice advocating ‘legitimate interest’ and reliance on the lesser known Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations. However, of course we got it right as not only do we do law but we also understand the motor trade.
Interestingly, the March edition of the Law Gazette reports that lawyers were publicly criticised by Chris Combemale, chief executive of the marketing network DMA Group. Combemale told a Westminster Legal Policy Forum conference that many of the 1,000 DMA members had been wrongly told to focus on consent as the basis for processing data. Many businesses had followed ‘extremely conservative’ advice from their lawyers, he said, and sought to gain consent – or even double consent – to retain customer details.
Combemale added: ‘The legal profession had a considerable misunderstanding of how this legislation could and should apply to the marketing sector.’ He gave one example of a lower-league football club which had 100,000 supporters on its database before May 2018, but followed its lawyer’s advice to gain double opt-in. The club’s signups dropped over 97%.
Lucky for our members, we were on hand to give the correct advice through workshops, legal updates and information packs. Building on that, we now have HR Manager available to all our members which provides all the tools our members need to keep on top of GDPR compliance. HR Manager also makes managing your staff and keeping on top of health and safety super easy and efficient. If you are a member and haven’t yet logged on to your HR Manager portal, gives us a call and one of the client care team will help get you set up.
Octane Finance is the broker of choice for new and used car dealers nationwide. With our uncompromising service levels and our genuine and professional approach, you and your customers can trust us to deliver.
