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Irish Data Protection Commission Case Studies |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Irish Data Protection Commission Case Studies >> Case study 6: Customer data legitimately passed from car dealership to new buyer. [2011] IEDPC 6 (2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEDPC/2011/[2011]IEDPC6.html Cite as: [2011] IEDPC 6 |
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In November 2010 I received two complaints from individuals who had received direct marketing text messages from a car dealership promoting special offers. Both of the complainants had previously purchased cars from a firm which had since ceased trading. Since closure, some of the sales team had become involved with the new car dealership which was now the subject of the complaint to my Office. Neither complainant had consented to receiving direct marketing text messages from the new dealership.
As part of the investigation of these complaints, my Office contacted the new dealership to obtain details, if any, of the consent it had in place to send the text messages to the complainants. In its response, the dealership informed us that it had purchased the previous dealership from the liquidator and it had taken over the existing premises, staff, equipment, stock, etc. From this purchase it had obtained the full database of previous customers. The contact details of both complainants were contained within this database. As customers of the previous business, both complainants had opted in to receive marketing messages at the time of their car purchase and/or car service. The dealership confirmed that it had now unsubscribed both customers from their database so they would no longer receive any future marketing messages. It also offered an apology to both complainants for any confusion caused.
Where a company purchases a business from a liquidator, it is likely that in circumstances where the customer data is to be used by the purchaser for the same purposes as the previous owner had used them, there would not be a data protection concern. If the customer data was to be considered for use for another purpose then the liquidator would need to get an opt in consent from those customers on the database to pass on their personal information to the new buyer. In the above case the customer data was used for the same purpose as previously by the new buyer so no breach of the Data Protection Acts arose.
