First data protection fine to catalogue company
“The organisation was taking details of people who bought their products, and then selling them as mailing lists. Of course, this wasn’t OK. Just because people were buying sandals to aerate their lawns, complete with two-inch nails on the sole, didn’t mean their personal data could be sold on wherever the company saw fit...It was the first time I really realised the value of this personal data.”
Jonathan Bamford, former Information Commissioner’s Office director.
How do lawn aerator shoes show the value of people’s personal information
The arrival of a data protection law in 1984, gave the Information Commissioner’s Office – then called the Data Protection Registrar – the power to take action against the misuse of people’s personal information.
An early case involved a company that specialised in selling the type of innovative products you never knew you needed – in this case, lawn aerator shoes. Crucially, the company also specialised in selling its customer’s information as mailing lists, making almost as much money from selling information as they did from selling their products.