Fundraising breaches are a hot topic at the moment, and so many headlines following December’s ICO fines mentioned the breaches but were less clear on exactly what the charities had done wrong. In fact, three fundraising tools were utilised by both charities: wealth screening; data matching; and Reciprocate.

The wealth screening involved sending existing data to a third party which analysed this and other information to give a view of amounts that could reasonably be afforded by individuals. Data matching involved using another third party to trawl existing databases and publicly available information to fill in any gaps left in information provided by an individual to the charity, for example, using a telephone book to provide a telephone number if omitted. Reciprocate was a means for charities to share data about donors, enabling them to reach individuals who may be sympathetic to their cause.