ICO investigation reveals how charities have been exploiting supporters

[Burnsy2023]

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ne...ow-charities-have-been-exploiting-supporters/

Really interesting statement by the Information Commissioner's Office, both the RSPCA and British Heart Foudnation have been fined by the ICO.

The ICO said so-called “wealth screening” was one of three different ways both charities breached the Data Protection Act by failing to handle donors’ personal data consistent with the legislation.

The charities also traced and targeted new or lapsed donors by piecing together personal information obtained from other sources. And they traded personal details with other charities creating a massive pool of donor data for sale.

Donors were not informed of these practices, and so were unable to consent or object.

I'd like to say this surprises me, but it doesn't.

 

[plasmahal]

These are not charities, they are corporate businesses exploiting peoples generosity.

 

[Em3bbs]

So the fine gets paid with donor's money. Great!

 

[asim18]

So the fine gets paid with donor's money. Great!

Exactly.

Imposing a monetary penalty on a charity seems more worrying to me than a charity actively targeting donors. Taxing £43000 off a couple charities seems pretty messed up, unless it's being taxed directly off the responsible parties' personal income for the next 20 years.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Exactly.

Imposing a monetary penalty on a charity seems more worrying to me than a charity actively targeting donors.

So what would you suggest the sanctions should be then?

 

[The Running Man]

So what would you suggest the sanctions should be then?

Eviction from the board? Prosecution?

 

[SpeedFreak]

So what would you suggest the sanctions should be then?

Suspended sentence for the CEOs with defined repercussions for future breaches leading to removal of position for failure to address the problems within a defined window. Watch how quickly things change when the CEO is at risk.

 

[asim18]

So what would you suggest the sanctions should be then?

All I'm saying is fining a charity is concerning, moral issue should be treated separately to one's blind pursual of assumed justice.

Is a fine on the whole company even going to affect the people who mandated this course of action? No. Are they going to pay it out of their own income? No. Perhaps the people who were in charge of this should be individually disciplined instead of letting them get away with it and affecting innocent people.

 

[Uther]

Suspended sentence for the CEOs with defined repercussions for future breaches leading to removal of position for failure to address the problems within a defined window. Watch how quickly things change when the CEO is at risk.

This.

 

[neil_g]

Nothing the RSPCA does these days shocks me. All about maximum publicity and getting the £££.

 

[plasmahal]

Suspended sentence for the CEOs with defined repercussions for future breaches leading to removal of position for failure to address the problems within a defined window. Watch how quickly things change when the CEO is at risk.

This would be a step to look at as there is a failure in corporate governance.

These people garner huge salaries mainly due to the responsibility of their post.

They have to be held accountable.

 

[plasmahal]

Sounds like the ICO have a responsibility to refer this to the these guys:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/c...tee/news-parliament-2015/committee-appointed/

 

[nIckEl101]

the rspca are shocking, a relative had bequethed them some money from her will, and so they contested her will and dragged out an already difficult process.

my family have vowed to never donate anything to RSPCA as their behaviour was disgusting, they didn't even come across as being grateful for the donation, it was just another money transaction.

 

[peterwalkley]

Doesn't remotely surprise me having first-hand evidence of charities doing exactly as outlined in the article.

My view is they should be fined and very publicly so. The fine should then be put into the same charity pot that lottery monies go to so that other charities get the money. If there are repeated incidents the charitable status revoked.

Going after individual CEO's should really only happen as a last resort for repeated bad behaviour, otherwise no-one will want to do the job. A system where they could be barred from working at a charity might be more workable, similar to the system where directors can be barred from running another company.

 

[FurryLemon]

Charities are big business. Better off giving time then money.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Suspended sentence for the CEOs with defined repercussions for future breaches leading to removal of position for failure to address the problems within a defined window. Watch how quickly things change when the CEO is at risk.

Suspended sentence for what criminal offence exactly?

 

[Steeps]

I want to see the "just £2 a month" adverts banned, or a disclaimer on each advert showing how much the charity really expects you to pay once you're on their mailing list with the repeated calls you will then get over the next few weeks. This is where a lot of their data will have come from.

 

[mmj_uk]

I was a talking to a woman whose husband had died a few years previously, she donated money to the hospital charity who had helped him in his final hours and from that point on would get phone calls asking her to set up a direct debit. That was disgusting I thought, charities shouldn't be phoning trying to guilt/pressure people to donate.

 

[Diddums]

Charities can all get ****ed. Every single one of them.



A few stories / flags:

When I first came to London, I was approached by the average charity beggar who asked for money for homeless kids. Fair enough, took a fiver out of my wallet and gave it to her. "Oh no, we can't accept cash, we can only take card details". Turns out they wanted to set up a direct debit, at which point I simply walked off.

Similar a few weeks later, except this time she approached me with a nice £400 iPad under her brolly in the pouring rain, expecting me to stand there and hand over my bank account details in the middle of a shower (no brolly for me, don't be silly). I actually walked off and told her that maybe she should offer her victims something to stand under before trying to fleece them.

Another one: Looking after a building in central London, one of the tenants was a very well known charity, the boss man had three cars he either came to work in, a Cayenne Turbo, a DB9 or an old F355. This was the head of a charity which helped provide clean drinking water to developing countries.

My wife signed up to sponsor a kid in Africa, think it was Worldvision, paid in £15 a month or whatever and did this for 18 months or so before stopping due to changing careers and a drop in salary. Even today, 5 years later, we're STILL getting crap in the mail from them, and I'm not talking flyers either, proper packs with info, catalogues of kids that need help, pity parties, the lot. Must cost a fortune to send all this stuff out.

Daytime TV ads. Anyone who's spent a weekday at home with the telly on will know how many ads appear on telly. Over and over and over. Every bloody time. Must cost a fortune and it's frustrating as hell, do these people not realise that trying to force feed this crap down our throats is only alienating us?




Don't get me wrong, I know that most in these companies probably have the best of intentions and want to make a difference, but sadly those who call the shots are seemingly incapable of resisting greed and succumbing to it eventually.

 

[wnb]

Only thing charities care about are donations, I won't give to charities at all. Once they get their hooks into you they will hound you into the grave and beyond.

A £25,000 fine seems laughable when the RSPCA gets more than a 100 Million in donations every year. What a joke.