BT fined £77k after sending five million spam emails

BT has been hit with a £77,000 fine after sending almost five million spam emails to customers who had not given their consent for such marketing, it was revealed on Wednesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) handed down the fine, after it found the incumbent telecoms operator had send 4.9 million emailed between December 2015 and November 2016, promoting three charities.

BT had told the ICO that the emails were not a deliberate contravention of regulations, and said it was disappointed by the fine given the circumstances in which the emails were sent.

“This relates to emails concerning charitable fundraising that were sent to some of our customers in 2015-16," it said in a statement.

“There was no financial benefit to BT and minimal impact on customers - in fact, almost five million emails elicited just one complaint,”

The FTSE 100 firm said it had accepted the facts set out by the ICO, and apologised.

“We immediately tightened our procedures when the complaint was originally raised in February 2017 - as part of our robust and ongoing commitment to the highest standards of data management.”

But the ICO said that no matter what circumstances BT claimed surrounding the emails, it still did not act within the law.

“Organisations have a responsibility to ensure they are acting within the law - where they do not, the ICO can and will take action,” said ICO head of enforcement Steve Eckersley.

“We investigated the matter and uncovered the full extent of this activity, which shows how important it is for people to report nuisance emails.”