United Kingdom: HelloFresh, a food delivery service, was fined for sending millions of unsolicited emails and texts to its customers.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ordered the recipe box company to pay £140,000 following an investigation in 2022.
It was found that over the course of a seven-month spam campaign, 79 million emails and 1 million texts were sent. It was a “clear breach of trust,” according to the ICO. HelloFresh announced modifications to its email and SMS policy.
After 8,729 complaints to the 7726 spam message reporting service and 14 complaints made directly to the regulator, investigations started in March 2022.
The ICO found that HelloFresh kept contacting some people even after they requested it to stop. Customers were not adequately informed, and it was also discovered that their data would be used for marketing purposes for a maximum of 24 months following their cancellation of subscriptions.
Mr. Andy Curry, head of investigations at the ICO, said that, “This marked a clear breach of trust of the public by HelloFresh. Customers weren’t told exactly what they’d be opting into, nor was it clear how to opt out. From there, they were hit with a barrage of marketing texts they didn’t want or expect, and in some cases, even when they told HelloFresh to stop, the deluge continued.”
According to the ICO, the fine showed that “clear and decisive” action would be taken to protect customers’ right to choose how their data is used if the law was broken.
“The investigation that led to this fine began following complaints filed by the public, both to the ICO and to the 7726 service. This shows just how important it is that if you are being contacted with nuisance calls, texts or emails, that you report it straight away,” Mr. Curry added.
HelloFresh stated that its clients were “at the centre of everything we do” and that it took its responsibility for data protection “very seriously.”
HelloFresh asserted that the regulator only received three complaints, as opposed to the 14 that the ICO claimed it received directly.
“We have carefully considered their feedback and have made changes to our SMS and email policy. “We have worked closely with the ICO,” the firm said in a statement.
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