Parenting site Emma's Diary fined £140,000 for selling people's data to Labour Party

Parenting website fined for selling data collected from its users to the Labour Party

A parenting website has been fined for selling data collected from its users to the Labour Party in the run up to the 2017 General Election.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined Emma's Diary £140,000 for allegedly gathering data from more than one million people, before selling it on to the Labour Party.

Data gathered included people's names, addresses and birth dates of the mother and children. Using a database created by Experian, Labour used the personal information to target new mothers with direct marketing.

A Labour spokesperson said the party no longer used data from the site and is currently reviewing the ways it acquires data.

"We have neither bought nor used Emma's Diary data since the 2017 General Election and we are in the process of reviewing our approach to acquiring data from third parties," the spokesperson said.

The ICO's inquiry into the data use comes just months after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the UK data firm use the personal information of 87 million Facebook users for the purpose of political profiling in the build up to the 2016 US presidential elections.

A survey of UK organisations earlier this year by software firm CA Technologies found that 47 per cent of business executives admit their organisation sells consumer data – including personally identifiable information – to third parties.

"Undoubtedly, businesses must primarily ensure that they are firstly using and selling data legally and responsibly. However, even businesses with compliant data collection and use must ensure that data sharing is clearly articulated to consumers when they choose to engage with tat organisation," Stephen Walsh, senior director of security at CA Technologies, said in the wake of the Emma's Diary revelations.

"Greater transparency on data protection policies is required as currently just one in three UK consumers claim to receive this information."

A spokesperson for Emma's Diary said the website will never again provide data to a political party.