Information Commissioner

I try to make sure that I work to the guidelines produced by the Researchers in Fundraising Special Interest Group (

Catching up on some long overdue reading this weekend, I spotted an article in Third Sector magazine by Sophie Hudson under the headline:

Nuisance marketing charities face fines

It transpires that The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO - the team that polices the Data Protection Act) has been granted new powers to fine organisations for ‘making unwanted contact with the public’.

This could be huge news for all organisations that run individual marketing or fundraising campaigns for four reasons:

The latest edition of Information Age includes an article on cloud computing. It refers to a recent report by The European Union’s European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

The latest (free) edition of Information Age www.information-age.com includes an advert for a forthcoming conference on information security www.infosec.com.

The May 2009 edition of the Information Commissioner's (ICO) e-newsletter has just arrived, and as usual, includes a few interesting snippets.

A recent (free) edition of Information World Review (www.iwr.co.uk) contains a number of interesting articles (as usual). One suggests that the recession could fuel data theft losses.