The Conservative Party contracted a secretive call centre during the election campaign which may have broken data protection and election laws, a Channel 4 News investigation has found.
The investigation has uncovered what appear to be underhand and potentially unlawful practices at the centre, in calls made on behalf of the Conservative Party. These allegations include:
● Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates – banned under election law.
● Political cold calling to prohibited numbers
● Misleading calls claiming to be from an ‘independent market research company’ which does not apparently exist
Tonight the Conservative Party admitted it had commissioned Blue Telecoms to carry out ‘market research and direct marketing calls’ during the campaign, and insisted the calls were legal.
A Conservative spokesman said: ‘Political parties of all colours pay for market research and direct marketing calls. All the scripts supplied by the party for these calls are compliant with data protection and information law.’
But a whistleblower at the call centre told Channel 4 News they had been making potentially unlawful phone calls to voters.
However, no such company is registered in England and Wales. ’Axe Research’ does not have a live website, address or phone number and is not listed on the data protection register.
Workers were repeatedly told not to disclose that they were working for Blue Telecoms.
Asked what Axe Research was, one supervisor told Channel 4 News: ‘It’s just the name we do these surveys under, basically. I did a Google search, nothing comes up. But as far as anyone’s concerned, yeah, we’re a legit independent market research company.’
The practice appears to be in breach of data protection rules on transparency and privacy. Guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) states that market research companies must disclose ‘who you are; what you are going to do with their information and who it will be shared with.’
A spokesperson for the ICO said they intend to ask the Conservative Party ‘about the marketing campaigns conducted from this call centre’ and told Channel 4 News:
‘The Information Commissioner reminded campaigners from political parties of their obligations around direct marketing at the beginning of the election campaign. Where we find they haven’t followed the law we will act.’
Anya Proops QC, a leading barrister in the field of data protection said:
‘If you’ve got a situation where the company that’s calling you is concealing their true identity or is misleading the person who is receiving the call, then that is obviously a problem under the privacy legislation.’
The head of Blue Telecoms, Sascha Lopez, said that any questions about Axe Research should be put to the Conservative Party.
However, the Party refused to comment directly on the calls being made by Axe Research but said: ‘No data from the market research calls were recorded against individual records.’
Unlawful marketing calls?
During the investigation, callers were also tasked with making direct calls ‘on behalf of Theresa May and the Conservative Party’.
Voters who identified themselves as ‘undecided’ were then fed key Conservative Party messages. These included references to the Brexit negotiations, the danger of a hung Parliament and immigration. One survey stated:
‘… It was reported in the Daily Mirror in September last year that Jeremy Corbyn is not concerned about the numbers of people coming to live in the UK and it was reported on Sky News this year that Theresa May has restated her pledge to reduce net Migration.
‘Just thinking about these reports in the media and the reports that you live in a marginal constituency that may determine who is prime minister… Does that make you more likely to back Theresa May or more likely to vote for Jeremy Corbyn?’
A Channel 4 News analysis also reveals that the vast majority of calls sampled were to numbers registered on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).
While genuine market research is permitted, marketing calls to TPS numbers on behalf of political parties are prohibited by EU regulations and the Data Protection Act, unless the person called has specifically given the organisation their consent.
Channel 4 News showed the content of these calls to Dr Darren Lilleker, Associate Professor of Political Communication at Bournemouth University.
‘This is canvassing,’ he said. ‘It can’t be research. All the questions are loaded, a lot of them are quite rhetorical in that sense of guiding you towards one answer. It’s canvassing. It replicates the sorts of scripts I’ve seen used on doorsteps by parties for many years.’
The head of Blue Telecoms, Sascha Lopez, said: ‘All scripts supplied made it clear during the call, either at the beginning or the end, that the calls were being made on behalf of the Conservative Party. Respondents have the right for their responses to be deleted if they so wished. No data from the market research calls to TPS numbers (which regulations allow) were recorded against individual records.
‘We followed the regulations given by the TPS, ICO and Ofcom in regards to indentifying who was calling, the reason for calling, as well as operating an opt-out list.’
Paid canvassing for candidates?
During election day, on the 8th of June, callers at Blue Telecoms were told that they would spend the day making calls on behalf of named Conservative parliamentary candidates in Wales.
Guidance from the Electoral Commission for candidates and agents says: ‘During the campaign, you must not…pay canvassers. Canvassing means trying to persuade an elector to vote for or against a particular candidate or party’
www.channel4.com/news/revealed-inside-the-secretive-tory-election-call-centre