A company which conducts public ‘surveys’ over the phone, only to target respondents with unsolicited marketing calls, has been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The firm is the first company to fall afoul of the ICO’s new investigation into ‘data broking’ firms that harvest information and sell it on to similar telemarketing companies.

Verso has been ordered to pay £80,000, after the ICO’s investigation concluded that it was unclear what the company was doing with the data that it collected. In addition, the ICO alleges that Verso’s spree spanned years, and as a result, its ‘customers’ could not have known who would be handling their data, and that it would be used for marketing.

Based in Hertfordshire, Verso first came to the attention of the ICO after Prodial (a similar business) was fined £350,000 – a record at the time of issuance in February 2016 – for making 46 million nuisance calls. Another organisation tied to unsolicited marketing, EMC Advisory Services Ltd, has also been found to be embroiled in the case. The ICO claims that Verso built up data through its ‘surveys’, which were in fact what the ICO terms ‘lead generation’ calls, made from two overseas call centres.

James Dipple-Johnstone, ICO Deputy Commissioner (Operations), said: “We have concerns about the impact of invisible data processing on UK citizens and are currently looking at the data broking industry including how businesses trade and use personal data behind the scenes.

“This type of unlawful data trading directly fuels the nuisance call and spam text industry and creates misery for millions of UK citizens.

“Businesses need to understand they don’t own personal data – people do and those people have the right to know what is happening to it and who is likely to be contacting them for marketing.”

The ICO has the ability to issue fines up to £500,000, but this £80,000 figure is still likely to significantly impact Verso, which according to accounts filed in May has assets totaling just £12,386.

The ICO said: “Along with the requirement to process data fairly, Verso should have had people’s consent to use their information in this way. The company could not provide proof of this consent. If businesses are buying data they must be sure of the source of the information and obtain the correct consent.

“The investigation into the data broking industry includes looking at a wide range of organisations and the roles they play. This includes credit reference agencies (CRAs) which are key players due to the volume of personal data they gather. The ICO has contacted CRAs about the products they offer and how transparent it is to users as to how personal data is being processed.”