Battersea Dogs and Cats Home has been fined £9,000 for breaching data protection rules.

The animal charity was tele-matching between 2010 and 2015, which is using external companies to track down additional information about their donors, like using an email address to track down a postal address.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) carried out an investigation between 2015 and 2017 to find out whether charities were following data protection rules.

The investigation found 13 charities were breaking the law when handing donors’ personal information.

A total of 740,181 records containing personal data for this purpose were accessed by BDCH over this time but its privacy notices did not indicate personal data would be used for tele-matching.  

Donors would have been completely oblivious to the fact that this was happening.

Other charities were wealth screening, which is hiring wealth management companies to analyse the financial status of supporters and estimate how much more money they could be persuaded to give.

However, BDCM did not practice this.

A spokesperson for BDCH said they were “very disappointed” by the ICO’s decision to issue monetary penalties to eleven charities.

They said: “We fully support all charities being held to the highest of fundraising standards but it would be most unfortunate if any supporters’ or beneficiaries’ donations were diverted from such vital causes to pay ICO fines. 

“Like other charities, we intend to pay this fine swiftly and in doing so, it will be reduced to £7,200. 

“We are entirely reliant on the generosity of the public, and our Trustees would like to reassure all our supporters that their donations will not be used to pay the reduced ICO penalty.

“Instead, this will be achieved solely from investment income.

“Battersea has been fined by the ICO today for what is known as tele-matching and not including adequate information in our privacy policy. We have not been fined for what is known as wealth screening or data swapping.

“As like many charities that used tele-matching, we wanted to make sure the telephone numbers we had for our supporters were correct.  

“However, to reassure our donors, we stopped tele-matching in July 2015, as soon as the ICO highlighted it as a potential issue to charities. 

“We would also like to assure our supporters that none of their data has been lost, sold or compromised in any way.

“Building lasting relationships with supporters is really important to Battersea, and we value the opportunity to talk to them over the phone about the difference their donations are making to our animals. 

“On every telephone call Battersea makes, we ask our supporters whether they are happy to take our call and whether they may be happy to hear from us in the future.

“Battersea is an active and committed leader within UK fundraising and will continue to help set new standards to ensure the public can have trust and confidence in the work of charities as a whole.”

The charities fined were:

The International Fund for Animal Welfare - £18,000

Cancer Support UK (formerly Cancer Recovery Foundation UK) - £16,000

Cancer Research UK - £16,000

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association - £15,000

Macmillan Cancer Support - £14,000

The Royal British Legion - £12,000

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children - £12,000

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity - £11,000

WWF-UK - £9,000

Battersea Dogs’ and Cats’ Home - £9,000

Oxfam - £6,000

Battersea Dogs and Cats Home declined to comment.