How long does customer consent last?
24th October, 2016 at 10:27am
The data we collect on our customers and the data they give us is at the heart of everything we do as marketers. Of all of this data, the most important is how and when they gave (or renewed) consent to receive communication from your business.
The collection of this consent is something covered in the GDPR as needing to be ‘explicit’ and ‘unambiguous’. This means brand businesses will no longer be able to use pre-ticked boxes and justify consent through inactivity or silence.
But what happens once you have that consent? The law says that consent is given ‘for the time being’, but with the ICO adding that ‘consent decays over time’ what is the lifespan of consent? Unfortunately, this is where the laws and guidance become less specific.
The ICO has made a recommendation for third party data that consent should be considered invalid after 6 months. In essence, this means that marketers would have six months from the initial collection for first use.
On the topics of postal and all first party marketing data, however, there are no timeframes offered in the ICO’s guidance to date. That’s why the DMA’s Responsible marketing committee is launching a new consultation process open to all members to ask for your thoughts on how long you believe consent should last and how we should go about setting this as a standard for our industry. This may vary depending on the sector, vertical, channel and any number of other factors, but as responsible marketers we should be able to agree on a minimum standard.
The link below will take you through to a brief survey where you can offer your thoughts anonymously, unless you’d like to leave us your email address to continue the conversation further. The survey will run until 17th October and if you have any further questions or thoughts you would like to share with the committee, please contact Rosie Atherfold on councils@dma.or.uk or on 020 7291 3300.
By Skip Fidura, Chair of the DMA’s Responsible marketing committee
