Data Protection Act Compliance
Electric Marketing is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office and operates within the terms of the Data Protection Act.
Much of our data is gathered from public sources such as company reports, press releases and trade magazines and journals. We focus on large companies and the key decision makers within those companies.
We supplement information from public sources with telephone research, checking all data every four months with the relevant company.
The key requirements of the Data Protection Act are that data is used responsibly, is checked regularly and that the person listed (or someone associated with that person) has given permission to be on the list.
If a person asks to be removed from our database, their name is immediately removed and systems are in place to ensure that their name is not added at a later date.
As a user of Electric Marketing business lists, the Data Protection Act requires you to:
- Only send mail that relates to business matters.
- Make sure you have a return address on the envelope (so that the Royal Mail can return any letters that are incorrectly addressed). You can return these 'gone aways' to us, so that we can update our records too, but bear in mind that if you are using the data more than four weeks after you purchased it, you will not receive the 50p postage refund that we offer for all verified 'gone aways'.
- You must ensure there is an option for the addressee to remove himself or herself from the list.
- If you are using email addresses your email must contain a mechanism whereby the person can opt out of receiving any further e-marketing communications from you. All it requires is a line at the bottom of the email saying 'if you don't wish to hear from us again, please reply with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line'. This is a central part of the Electronic Communications Act.
We recommend that you do not use the data for more than six months without either checking it yourself or buying an updated version of the list from Electric Marketing.
If we find that data users are not complying with the Data Protection Act or are using our data unlawfully, we reserve the right to blacklist the offending organisation and report them to the Information Commissioner.
The Data Protection Act exists to protect people from the unscrupulous companies who take no care over the compilation and updating of their data. Legitimate users of well researched and maintained lists have nothing to fear from this law.
