Fourteen charities have complied with the Code of Fundraising Practice and accessed requests to cease contact with individuals that have been made through the Fundraising Preference Service.
Last month the Fundraising Regulator named 59 charities which had failed to acknowledge suppression requests made via the FPS. It warned that this could be a breach of the Data Protection Act and referred the charities to the Information Commissioner's Office.
The ICO has told Civil Society News it will not be taking enforcement action against the earlier 59 charities.
A spokeswoman said it had written to the charities to remind them: “They must act lawfully and responsibly in protecting people’s personal data, and in how they communicate with them.”
The list names 49 charities, down from 59 published in early March, with 14 leaving the list and four joining it.
Around 8,300 people have submitted over 25,000 requests since the launch of the FPS in 2017. When a suppression request is made through the service, the charity is automatically emailed and told to log in to the FPS system to “collect” the request. Charities then have 28 days to act on the request and stop contacting the individual.
Most of those named by the regulator had incomes of under £1m. Ten had not filed accounts with the Charity Commission this year and one has not filed for five years.
Newly compliant charities
Lloyd’s Register Foundation, the Challenge, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness and Edhi International Foundation UK were four charities with some of the highest reported incomes that are now off the list.
Some charities told Civil Society News that they did not carry out fundraising and had been unaware that they needed to access suppression requests.
Mike Wetherell, director of operations at Lloyd’s Register Foundation said: “The foundation was not initially informed of the suppression request as this was instigated by an item of correspondence sent from the Lloyd's Register Group Ltd, a company, rather than the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charity.
“Having now fully investigated the matter, it was found that the suppression request most likely arose from a letter sent to the individual concerned by the Lloyd's Register Group in March 2018.
“This correspondence detailed the group's approach to the soon-to-be introduced GDPR legislation and stated that unless the individual actively ‘opted-in’ to remain on the group's distribution list by responding to this effect, his or her name would be removed from all databases owned by the group.
“As no response was received the individual was duly removed and no further correspondence has been sent.
“I can confirm the individual concerned did not appear in any Lloyd’s Register Foundation databases.
“Further, as the foundation does not fundraise, our income is generated solely through the returns from our investments and shareholdings, we were unaware of the existence of the FPS scheme.
“We have now opted in to the FPS notification system and receive weekly reports from the FPS and I am pleased to report that there have been no further suppression requests relating to either party.
“Both the Lloyd's Register Foundation and Lloyd's Register Group Ltd take their GDPR obligations very seriously and we have an open channel of communication to both the FPS and ICO to ensure we remain fully compliant.”
A spokesperson for IAPB said: “The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness takes our statutory responsibilities very seriously.
“IAPB is a member alliance and our primary source of funding is through member fees.
“We do not solicit donations from the general public in the UK, or anywhere else in the world, and so we do not send out direct marketing material.
“Our members, and other eye care organisations, do use our material, designs and themes and we believe that may have led to the suppression request.
“IAPB has accessed the suppression request and we have checked to ensure that this person does not receive any email or marketing communication directly from us.”
Faheem Binrahim, branch manager at Edhi International Foundation UK told Civil Society News: “Whoever does not wish to receive details, we remove their details from our data.
“As far as the ICO is concerned, there was only one case, but I think we are now complying. We did not have access to the platform before, but now we have access.”
Elsewhere Hulme Hall Grammar School said does not carry out fundraising and that it had not received the notifications from the regulator because it had moved location.
4 new charities named
The Fundraising Regulator added four new charities to its list this month. They are:
1. Change, Grow, Live
2. Christ Embassy
3. Sudan Famine Relief Trust
4. Walsingham Trust
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