Today, I wrote to Labour List and proposed to write an article for them.
I’ll take help on the title but currently working with “Privacy Law, canvassing and registered supporters”
Next year, 28th May, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation comes into force. Among other things it will prohibit the storage and processing of canvass returns without freely given, informed and explicit consent. We will have to prove that consent has been obtained and be able to tell electors everything we know about them.
The simplest answer to these new compliance requirements is to extend the registered supporter arrangement, make it an ongoing contract so that the agreement can include privacy clauses. The ambition would be to extend the scheme to high proportions of our voter base. For this purpose, the fee would need to be low, nearer £3 than £25.
ooOOOoo
I should add that without some form of reform, the retention of the Registered Supporters data in the membership system is in my mind questionably legal, as it breaks the storage limitation principle. When compliance ruled that Registered Supporters could not be invited to member’s meetings, they made the sole purpose of holding the data the leadership election. This purpose was confirmed when the NEC required re-registration of the registered supporters at £25 in 2016; the consequence of such a decision to my mind negated the purpose of the original registrations.
They told me it wasn’t sufficiently relevant to the Labour Party!