The two main political parties last week received formal warnings from the Data Protection Commissioner for sending out unsolicited e-mails.
The PN had no intention of forcing its way to people through unsolicited mail
Complaints about both parties cropped up in January, when talk of an early election sent the Nationalist and Labour parties into an electoral frenzy.
Five e-mail users complained about each party, reporting that they received electronic messages despite never having had any contact with the parties.
In Labour’s case, the complainants said that they received a newsletter to which they never subscribed, while those who complained about the PN received an e-mail to become party members.
In his decisions, Data Protection Commissioner Joseph Ebejer lamented the reluctance by both parties to respond to his requests within a reasonable timeframe.
After repeated requests for information, Labour said it was not aware of having e-mail addresses that did not pertain to party members, activists and other individuals who made contact with the PL, its officials or members of staff.
However, it promised to delete the e-mail addresses of the complainants and any others which were not provided by the individuals themselves.
The PN said the e-mail addresses were provided by party activists and it was impossible for them to determine which addresses were derived from which activist. However, it said it stopped the e-mails as soon as the first official complaint reached them.
In both cases, the commissioner said the parties provided no evidence that the data was collected with people’s consent.
He said the law stipulated that such advancing of political ideas through e-mail was only allowed with the prior consent of the individual concerned.
Finding the parties guilty of violating the legal provisions, the commissioner warned them that, if similar violation were repeated, an administrative fine would be imposed.
The law allows contraventions to be punished with an administrative fine of up to €23,293 for each violation and an additional €2,329 for each day during which the violation persists. However, it also leaves space for formal warnings.
Further to the warning, the parties were asked to carry out a data cleaning exercise to ensure all e-mail addresses contained in their database complied with the law’s requirements.
They must also implement a specific procedure to process personal data of new contacts, ascertaining these are obtained either with the informed consent of individuals or as part of a previous party activity, while providing evidence of the procedure’s implementation.
When contacted, a PN spokesman said the party always provided an option for e-mail recipients to unsubscribe, from the footer of the same e-mail.
“The Nationalist Party, contrary to Muscat’s Labour Party, does not send unsolicited mass e-mails.
“However, reports have been made that a handful of people have received unsolicited mail, in which case the party does apologise, of course.”
The spokesman said the PN had no intention of forcing its way to people through unsolicited mail and pointed to its latest online initiatives such as www.mychoice.pn where users can subscribe and engage with the party.
Meanwhile, Labour said the party took note of the decision by the Data Protection Commissioner and has taken steps to ensure it was fully compliant with the law.
However, it also made several requests for the Data Protection Office to publish a code of practice for political parties on the use of data.
“The Labour Party has also, on various occasions, indicated that there have been various instances where data held by government departments and public entities have been used for purposes of propaganda such as the cases when, on the eve of the last election, the Prime Minister sent personally addressed letters to individuals employed in various sectors.”